Tears of Glass
by Sora Killua
Summary: As any young boxer his age, Naruto has plenty of spunk but little money to speak of, and because of this he begs his best friend, Sakura, to find an apartment for him. He immediately regrets his decision, though, when he walks inside; not only was it dark and wretched, it had an angry ghost as well...! NaruSasuNaru, a Naruto-Ghost fic! If it's your cup of tea, read and enjoy
1. Chapter One

**Author's Notes:**

**Heloooooooooo, everyone! It's been a while since I started any type of story, and this would be my fifth Naruto-fic! As always, life is keeping me as busy as honeybee, but I just had to write this story! For all of you who have pressed the button to read this story, I love you, guys! And I know you are in the mood for some Naruto-Ghostly-Romance! I bet I am! =3 I just love ghost stories, and well, I had to enroll myself with the many awesome writers who have written a Naruto-Ghost-Story out there! Most of you may know what would happen –since the initial plot is always the same, boy meets ghost –, but believe me, I've some twist in my head that would keep you tuned. And a million thanks to my wonderful new Beta, Fyrshi, for his edit on this story, thank you a lot! =D So, enough blabbering about stuff in the future and enjoy the first chapter, guys!  
P.S: This is a ten-chapter story only, so keep on reading ~**

**Disclaimer: Naruto is mine! Hahahaha…lol…nah, I'm joking, I'm a penniless student who is trying to write off her sentiments into the actual Naruto series. Sorry for disappointing you, guys, but it belongs to its rightful owner, Kishimoto-chama =3. *sighs in depression*.**

* * *

He was looking at a complete and utter dump! He should've known it would turn out this way! The moment her eyes had taken that evil glint to them, he should've realized he was in deep shit. Call it stupidity or ill-advised trust, but he chose to believe in her this time, telling himself that she wouldn't fuck him over like all those other times, and that she was finally acting like a best friend should. Perhaps, she was finally caring for his wellbeing and offering her services when needed. But no, Sakura chose to misinterpret the request he'd made like his former ones and fuck him over. To crush the little hope he'd build in favor of her own amusement. Naruto snorted at himself and felt his golden locks curl to the back at the hideous sight that he was forced to get used to from now on.

The young boxer at the front door slowly turned to his right and had to tell his heart not to jump out of his chest when a foreign sound reached his ears. He quickly calmed down and mentally hit himself about his rather fragile heart when he noticed that the sound was only that of the ungodly wind chimes placed on the window, for whatever crackpot reason the previous owner had in mind. Sighing at the craziness of his situation, he proceeded inside and closed the creaking door after him.

No one would disagree that he was looking at a dump, but it was his dump. And there was no way he could escape that fact.

"Besides, I've already lost all my savings on it. So even if I wanted to, there's no turning back."

The young male removed his cap, airing his blond locks for the first time since his arrival; his hair had a mind of its own and always seemed to make sure to stick up at weird angles whenever it was out of the captivity the boxer liked to call his favorite cap. Fixing his wayward hair back to its place, Uzumaki Naruto disappointedly locked the door behind him and stepped further inside his new – or rather, ancient – residence.

This was his apartment. His new home. His shelter. His supposed paradise. At this sobering thought, Naruto sighed again; there was no paradise here, only hell, and one he had to deal with his own way.

His soul was refusing to admit this, _he_ didn't want to admit this, and as he made his way further inside, the apartment was greeting him in the most unwelcome manner he'd ever experienced in his life. Trash was on the floor – no, the floor _was_ the trashcan –, the walls had lost their initial white color and faded to a deathly grey with black spots that he didn't know the origin of, and to top it all off, he made the grave mistake of going inside the kitchen.

Holding his breath as soon as he entered, Naruto valiantly attempted not to gag at the horrible view, and the _smell_…he couldn't locate the origin of it, but it was like it came from everywhere around him. As if the whole of the unhealthy, toxic place that shouldn't even _qualify_ as a kitchen was vibrating with it, he tried his best to ignore it and dragged his clean ass out and into one of the four rooms on this filthy apartment.

By the time he'd entered the room, there really was nothing that was able to surprise him anymore, and his low expectations were not defied. The sheets were torn, as if a massacre had happened there, and the floor was in the same pathetic condition as the rest of the apartment. Disregarding the floor for the time being, Naruto pulled out a towel from one of his bags and cleaned himself a spot on the nightstand – that was on the verge of falling over – and put his precious bag on it; even if all other bags were to get dirty or ruin, this particular one had to stay clean. Grinning to himself, he discarded the heavy clothes on his body onto the dirty bed and walked out to check the other three rooms.

Okay, so he was stupid. He should have known there was a catch when the price of the place was extremely low, and the surrounding environment wasn't all that welcoming, and he should have been suspicious when his best friend came up with the suggestion, but he didn't. He acted like a complete airhead by allowing her to take advantage of his condition and laugh at his back. Not only was he penniless, he now lived in a broken-down, mold-infested apartment located in the heart of a shady neighborhood. Yes, life truly couldn't get any worse at this moment in time.

No sooner had Naruto's thoughts cross his mind did he curse them; as cruel fate would have it, a broken window fell down and died noisily, allowing it to bear its wicked teeth in a laugh that assured the blond boxer that life really could be worse. He quickly rushed to fix the shattered opening, hoping that the falling snow wouldn't add to the extensive mess on his floor.

Getting by with an old, smelly bed sheet and some nails to tack over the space, Naruto decided to call this dreadful evening a night and hit the bed. Of course, he had to ruffle through his bag for something decent to sleep on first then go achieve that simple task; needless to say, he couldn't do it very well.

Every muscle in his body was aching, and he was dead tired; the day had been a very long one since the moment he had woken up. For a start, he had an early match to hurry to the moment his eyes saw daylight, and the minute he'd finished and rushed back to his old apartment, his old landlord had rudely thrown all of his things outside and with that, he was kicked out of the only place he'd ever called home – luckily, though, he was allowed to collect his stuff quickly then get lost. And when it was like his life was in ruins, he was given the okay from his best friend, the demon Haruno Sakura, to move into his new 'home'. When the offer had been finalized and accepted, he'd transferred the entirety of his financial account to his new apartment's previous owner.

Naruto felt his breath sting from the awful smell of cement that was coming from the open windows – he wasn't sure where it came from, but he knew that if he kept on inhaling it he'd certainly die. Having zero energy in his cells, though, he chose to ignore it and just shift over to the other side in an attempt to get some shut eyes.

But…

A stray tear left his right eye at the huge prank she'd pulled on him; now all the money that his boxing was going to give him was going to be thrown into mending this dump into a place where people could actually visit and he could unashamedly call a home. He rolled over in the uncomfortable bed and tried to fall asleep again, but clearly, his organs didn't agree with his choice of sleeping arrangements. Being fed up with his failed attempts at sleep, Naruto threw the borrowed sheet he used as a blanket –since his was still coming tomorrow with the moving truck – and waltzed out of the stinking bed.

The only place that he could actually describe as both relaxing and out of this junkyard was the veranda, and it was to there he'd retreated when he pulled the coat – the one he'd taken along the way – closer around his fit body and walked outside. The scene beneath him was sickening; all his eyes could make out were half-bent street lamps, dirty pavement and drunkards hugging their beers with no care in the world. But above the hellhole he was stuck in it was a totally different story, and it made his heart wonder to see that, no matter how much the sky was snowing, or how much the clouds were gathering, he was still able to detect the faint glitter of night stars. Somehow, as always, they comforted him, silently telling him that he was strong, that he had the power to get rid of something as simple as this, that he shouldn't give up and that he should try his hardest, just like what his mother was always telling him.

Naruto felt his energetic self return with the silent comfort he was being given, and suddenly all too aware of the cold that threatened to destroy his fingers; he shivered and walked inside. As he reluctantly closed the door to the heaven that he'd discovered lurking inside the hellish dirt, Naruto made his way to his room. What lingering tendrils of comfort from the sight outside disappeared when his ears picked up on a gushing sound, and he slowly walked towards it with an anxious heart.

His brows furrowed when he saw the window that he'd mended earlier on wide open, with the nails he worked so hard into fitting in the old wood scattered on the ground and as he stared, a strong gust of air entered through the open window; causing the sound he'd heard. Naruto walked over and tried to steady the sheet once more, but to no avail, and finally, he gave up and decided to leave it like that until morning comes, so he can get some carpenter or whoever worked in the area to come and have a look at the house.

Dragging his weight, Naruto returned back to the room holding the old sheet captive and in a minute, his eyes lost all colors as his mouth let out the three startled words that conveyed the night's emotions perfectly.

"What. The. Hell?!"

* * *

"Wait a minute, let me get this straight," The pink haired female, sitting across of him on the coffee table that she'd invited him to, said in an amused tone. "All your stuff was on ground? With the insides flipped out and everything torn apart?"

"Not torn apart…" The distressed-looking blond corrected, "Ruffled. As if someone had gone through and wore all of them, then threw them to different parts of the room."

"And this happened to all of your bags? All five of them?" She raised a thin right brow at this.

Naruto sighed and took another sip from the coffee she had bought him; seeing as how he was penniless right now, he didn't even have the cash to secure some lunch, let alone coffee. "I know you don't believe me, but I'm not lying."

"I didn't say you were…but maybe it was just a dream…" She suggested. "I mean, yesterday was a very, very exhausting day for you, and you were really tired."

"I won't deny that I had been, and I've also thought of that possibility, but pinching, slapping and even_ sleeping_ on it didn't change the scattered, worn clothes from being there. I have no idea what's happening, but something's wrong!"

"Couldn't you have been pranked? By some teens or something…maybe they took a chance when you weren't in the room and just ruffled your bags to give you a scare."

"That's just not possible for multiple reasons, of which I'll mention a few. Firstly, it occurred around two A.M – who would be awake at that time to prank someone they don't even know? I also checked for mental people beforehand, and there's none I could find. Not only that, the door was locked, the whole _house_ was locked, I even clearly remember locking the veranda behind me, and there was no way they would want to climb up to the fourth floor just to get to an old, rundown apartment like mine and prank me. There was no one there so believe me, Sakura; this wasn't the work of a human being."

She scowled, drawing her beautiful brows at him, and asked: "Then what? You don't think it's some ghost with unfinished business lurking around you now, do you?"

Naruto nodded, with a face telling her that he took everything he was about to confirm seriously, with no jokes on the table. "Yes, that's exactly what I think, because that's the only reasonable explanation for this confounding incident."

The pink haired girl sighed. "No, Naruto, that's the most unreasonable explanation. You're old enough to know that ghost, fairytales, ogres and anything imaginary is just that, imaginary. Linking a ghost to a real-life event is just plain absurd."

"Passing off something as absurd simply because you haven't seen anything is just plain _absurd _to me, Sakura. Besides, can you really believe that in this entire world, there's just us humans? I mean, there's bound to be another unknown species in the background, and just because we haven't come in contact with them doesn't mean they don't exist."

Upon hearing this, her frown deepened. "I blame all those silly supernatural shows you've been addicted to during your youth for your ignorance."

"Firstly, I was addicted to boxing, not supernatural shows; and secondly, you know I'm right."

"No, you're not. You're just a stupid person who can't distinguish reality from a dream and that's it."

"You still don't believe me, do you…?"

"What did you expect? You come at me with shit like this and expect me to welcome it with open arms? Grow up, Naruto."

The blond rolled his eyes at her ignorant act and stubbornly folded his arms over his chest. "Fine; if you insist on being so oblivious, how about coming with me and seeing it for yourself? I haven't touched anything, and everything is just the way I'd left it last night. Go see for yourself how that act _could_ be performed by a human being in a mere five minutes without me noticing, especially when I'm about ten meters away."

Having nothing better to do, and wanting to prove to Naruto how stupid he was for believing in something fictional, she agreed. "Alright. It won't hurt to alert you to reality and get those silly ideas out of your head."

"Good. Let's go."

Noticing that Naruto had finished his coffee, Sakura nodded in reply, picked up her purse and, within three minutes, they were out of the cozy café. Tumbling into a cab, Naruto ordered it to hurry towards his rundown apartment, so his best friend could see the acts of the ghost that was trying to kick him out of the home he'd purchased with money he'd spent so long saving.

When they arrived in front of his apartment half an hour later, Naruto's mouth hung open from incredulous shock. He closed the door, opened it again, and then closed for the third time, checking the number on the door. Yes, this was the number on the apartment he got, and he was sure he didn't enter a different building, since there really wasn't any other building beside his around the beautiful flower shop. What in the name of boxing was going on here?!

Sakura pushed aside her freaked out friend and opened the door to the apartment that Naruto – for some reason – didn't want her to enter and when she did, her mouth stretched into a huge grin at the beautiful layout inside. Bright navy-blue wallpapers with sea bubbles decorated the sides, a clean ceramic floor with bluish shoe prints matched the bubbles exceptionally well, and what made her grin turn into an envious smile was the clean, sparkling kitchen that was making her wish she could spirit it away from Naruto.

The pink haired girl skipped through the rooms and her smile turned cheerier after she finished examining all of them. Sakura stood next to the room that had Naruto's things inside and her brows knotted together at how neat they were; none were scattered, no clothes were inside-out; in fact, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. Her calm face quickly turned into an 'I-told-you-it-was-one-of-your-dreams' face, and it was directed to none other than her best friend who, again, was lost in a trance of his own at the entrance to his apartment.

"Naruto, baka, there's nothing here. Your clothes are still inside your bags, you really must've just been imagining all those things, and this is a beautiful apartment – unlike what you said earlier. You should thank me for getting it for you at such an amazing price with everything still inside it!"

At this, Naruto woke up from whatever daze he was currently stuck in, and fought to swallow past the lump that had appeared in his throat. "S-Sakura-chan…umm…t-this isn't my apartment."

"Ha–h? Have you lost it or something? That is _your _stuff, isn't it? You're trying to weasel out again?! Seriously, it was a dream, I was right and you were wrong, so accept it like a man!"

Naruto furiously shook his head at her and tried again. "The apartment I got into yesterday was a rundown scrapyard. I haven't told you anything about it because I was too caught up with what had happened last night, but the apartment was nothing like this. It was a place where the sight and smell would make me gag continuously!"

"Naruto, are you alright? I'm starting to worry about you."

"I'm starting to worry about myself, too. In the meantime, let's get out of here. This place needs an exorcist, because I'm definitely sure it has ghosts inside!"

Sakura didn't like what she heard, but she did as her friend had requested. It wasn't because she had believed him or anything; rather, it was because he was acting in a way that really frightened her. Maybe this place wasn't such a good idea after all, especially with all his crazy antics.

When they got down the stairs and into the front lobby, Sakura sighed as she watched Naruto leaf through his phonebook, in search of possible friends whose relatives stood a chance of being an exorcist of some sort.

"There! Didn't Hana Tori mention that her grandpa was a Zen master or something like that? She outta know some people who work as exorcist!"

"Hana Tori? That girl who had a weird infatuation with you just because you were good at boxing? You're seriously going to ask your old stalker for help?"

"It's the best option I have right now, Sakura. I can't leave my apartment for ghosts to roam about as they freaking please!"

"Did you forget the amount of trouble we went through to get her to back off?! I'm not looking for a repeat of _that_ nightmare."

"But I have no choice here; besides, do _you _know of an exorcist who can drive those ghosts out then?" He pleaded, with scared eyes that added infinitely more to her worry.

Sakura walked before him and barred his way, forbidding her friend from opening a headache and instead, opted to reason with him another time. "Listen, Naruto, I'm not saying that you're wrong, or that you merely saw everything like that because you were exhausted… but why don't you sleep at my place tonight, and tomorrow we return to your apartment? If it's still lovely and nice, then you have to believe that it was merely a bad dream or a prank made by someone on your first day, but if it was as messy as you've said you found it yesterday, then we'll call an exorcist I know, who has nothing to do with that old stalker of yours."

Looking from her to his apartment, a sulking look came to reside on the blond's face. "I don't want the ghost to take over what's mine…"

"We haven't confirmed their presence just yet, you know."

"…You really think I just imagined all of that?"

"At the moment, I don't know what to think, and I don't want to jump into assumptions you might come to hate, so just come to my house and see if anything changes later on."

Looking his friend hard in the eyes, the blond sighed and slumped in defeat. "Fine. I'll go to your apartment, but not now; I need to get to the ring first, since I have some stuff to take care of."

"Oh, is this about your upcoming tournament?"

"Yeah, Sensei said I need to sign in today or I won't be able to participate."

Sakura scowled at her chronically-late friend and noted: "One of these days, being a lazy procrastinator will fuck you over. Mark my words, Uzumaki Naruto."

The blond gave her his trademark grin and hurried off in the opposite direction. Although Sakura wanted to ask him if he had anything on him, like cash –since he'd left his things in his supposedly haunted apartment – she wasn't given the chance because, as always, her dumb friend used that ungodly speed of his to disappear, like a damn ninja in a blurry fog.

* * *

Naruto sighed and tossed once more in the mellifluous bed. This was going nowhere – he couldn't sleep, his whole body ached, but _still_ he couldn't sleep. His beautiful, blue eyes opened and he was met with the familiar view of the pink nightstand under the pink lamp with the pink curtains dancing ever so softly with the fan's air. He pulled the pink, sakura-petals-imprinted blanket away from him and sat up straight.

"I can't stay like this, I need to get back." He whispered to himself in the overly pink guest room that his friend had arranged for him and stood up.

Naruto was never a person who could sleep well in a bed that wasn't his, but he knew that, with the abnormal circumstances given to him, he had no other choice but to settle for this. It wasn't all that bad actually; just the excess usage of the color pink, which was something that he needed to learn to handle in order to survive in Sakura's guest room. He sighed and began walking. Who was he trying to fool? Staying another second in this overly girly room was out of the question – in all honesty, he'd rather deal with the ghosts, especially if it meant not staying in this guest room for another minute.

He pulled his hoodie over his head, put his jeans and sneakers quickly on his feet before checking his watch and feeling relieved that it was still nine in the evening; at least he would still be able to catch the last train if he ran. With that thought in his mind, Naruto proceeded towards the front door and, opening the door silently as not to wake his fast-asleep friend, he closed it behind him with ease.

He didn't deny the fact that he was grateful for her for her attempts to help by knocking some sense into him, but he was a boxer with a clear sense of dignity. There was no way he was going to run away from a fight, especially when this was a fight with his only apartment as the prize. Even though he hated every inch of that dump and regretted wasting a dime on it, it was still built with the money he spent years collecting, and no ghost was ever going to take that money from him!

Luckily for him, he still had money on him from the earlier fight he had participated in this afternoon, so he planned on using that to get home. Licking the tooth that threatened to fall off, Naruto grinned like a fox as he hurried through the crowds to the station. As long as he'd lived, boxing was his love. He had started it as a mean to defend himself because he had once been a weakly, cute child with girly looks, and that proved to be deadly in his neighborhood. Kids would always pick up on him, and having enough of their snickers and bullying, he begged his mother to allow him to join the karate team and gain power.

Well, that notion of his had been rejected in the first two seconds, with various silly reasons like how young he was to have his bones shatter, or how dangerous the neighborhood was to allow her only child to walk back at night from his karate lessons, and other absurd reasoning that made his five-year-old self hate his mother. However, an accident involving a group of threatened bullies slashing open his head with some nearby steel occurred, and needless to say, that final act had been the last straw that led to his mother's acknowledgement of the importance of self-defense. Finally, after a long period of denial, she was made to see the light.

However, that light became boxing rather than karate, and since he entered the sport and worked his ass off learning the basics, he knew that it wasn't all that bad. Gradually, he found himself enjoying himself more and more after each passing day, he made friends, people respected him and his looks ceased to determine who he was. It was for this reason that he'd fallen in love – in sweet, intoxicating love – with the game of the strong.

And he _was_ strong. Stronger than some dead air trying to rob him of his only remaining home and have him stroll the streets like some homeless boxer, at any rate.

Naruto's eyes held a challenging tone to them as he was facing the door to his apartment, and with courage flowing strongly through his fire-filled nerves, he pulled out his keys and clicked open the door leading to his inner hell.

This time, the apartment was in yet another different state. It wasn't as dirty as he'd seen it the first night, or as clean as the following morning. It was in between the two varied states-well, it was more like an apartment that was deserted for a week or so, to be accurate. It was an apartment he was ready to clean up and live in, but before that could happen…

Locking the door behind him and walking inside, Naruto took a deep breath before he shouted: "You fucking ghost, get your stinking ass out this instant and let's have a decent fight! If you win, I'll leave without a second thought, but if I win, you're going to vanish and move on to wherever dead people go to! YOU HEAR ME?!"

There was no change for about five minutes, at which the blond had the momentary thought that maybe his belief about his apartment being haunted was actually just that, a belief – all this time, he'd just been harboring a silly thought that his childish mind made him conjure up to explain all those weird events, and bring up an unnecessary fight. However, before he could go off and label himself as crazy, the air around him started getting cold and, in a few seconds, it turned a faint hue of gold that had him stare unblinkingly at the new mystery that he was experiencing.

The entirety of the wide hall had turned gold and, strangely enough, his hair wasn't even comparable to its vibrancy. This was pure gold, the same color that freshly mined gold would be. His blue orbs blinked at the cold and cool mix, and he swiftly prepared himself.

"I see you're finally making an entrance, and what a grand entrance I'd say it is…"

Quickly, Naruto ran towards the room he'd placed his special bag in and smiled when he found it in the same position he'd left it the previous night. Swiftly, he rummaged through the front pocket and pulled out his special boxing wraps. Since he'd made a promise to never use his boxing gloves outside of the ring, he had reverted to using wraps made of strong, pure-white fabric that would strengthen his punches but, at the same time, not hurt his opponent too much.

Nonetheless, as he was wounding his wraps onto his hands, he wondered how much benefit it would be against a ghost. Still, as the air froze and turned gold before him again in the room, Naruto had no time to think up an answer as his body rapidly dodged the strong gust – faintly resembling the cut of a sharp sword (formed from the faint golden particles melding with the cold air) – that came towards him.

He successfully fell on top of the bed, but the gusts didn't allow him a single minute to rest as they restarted their cruel attack on him. Although Naruto was a fighter and a hell of a tough one at that, the skills he'd taken so much pride in learning were failing him against his supernatural opponent. He used shields of tiny tables and sofas around the house, but air was air and he couldn't escape it; if he could, that would be a sight all scientists in the world would want to see.

Finally, he'd had enough. There was no need to run when it wasn't helping – his ripped up clothes and the multiple cuts on his body provided enough evidence towards this sentiment– so he decided on going on the offensive, by punching the vigorous air until it didn't have anywhere to run. He knotted his brows at his own thoughts, and within seconds, a small and incredibly foolhardy plan formed inside his mind.

Since he had nothing to lose, he dodged until he reached the stove, and in a few seconds, he switched it on and started directing punches to the air around him. Using the backward force of his punches, combined with the heat radiating from the stove behind him, Naruto forced the cold air gusts that threatened him to desist attacking him and grinned in triumph when the air lost its unearthly golden hue.

"Alright! Round one's my win!" Naruto exclaimed in happiness. "Two more rounds and you're outta here!"

A dark chuckle had his bones shivering with mixed feelings and, ever so slowly, as if an old motion picture was being displayed, the faint image of a person started revealing itself to him. He swallowed hard as the apparition began attracting color and pulsating into reality and soon enough, he found himself staring at an ethereal being.

Before him stood –or rather, floated – another creature. He feared calling it human because as far as he knew, human beauty and charm could only extend so far. The being in front of him had a very pale complexion and, combined with the faintness of the air, gave it a disappearing hue. This assured Naruto that what he was seeing was truly a supernatural being, despite its deceptive human-like appearance.

With a head, a torso, an abdomen, two slender legs and long arms that ended with faint glowing fingers, the ethereal being had him mesmerized and, daring to look up at it, the blond's breath hitched. He was aware that God had created creatures with black irises, but he never knew they had the ability to swallow a person whole with their darkness, until now. Matching these startlingly dark eyes was a head of silky hair with two long bangs floating ever so gracefully on either side of the ungodly pale face, leaving Naruto in awe at their apparent lack of gravity. The ends of these bangs, though, twirled in a spike not akin to that of a duck's or chicken's tail. At this rather inappropriate thought, his mouth couldn't contain the tiny chuckle that escaped.

The floating being snorted in derision and angrily cracked a knuckle at the way the foolish human was treating him; not only did he seem completely unaffected by any of the impressive feats he'd done, he seemed to be _enjoying _everything that had been going on.

"I've got to admit, you sure have guts…"

Naruto emerged from his own little world when his ears picked up on a deep and manly voice coming from the being before him. As he looked up, he couldn't stop from asking for a degree of clarification to sort out the confusion he felt, now that he knew the other could speak.

"Are you human?"

"A pointless question from a retarded being isn't worth an answer."

The blond blinked when a gust of cold air hit close to his cheek; it would have sliced his head wide open had he not dodged in at the last second. It left a faint trail of blood seeping from the open wound on his cheek, which mimicked the three other whiskers he already had.

"I'll take that as a no, but then that means you're a ghost. And if you are, why are you haunting my apartment? You're already dead, right? What good would it do to have an apartment after death? It's not like you're going to be using it or anything like that."

Instead of receiving an answer to his barrage of questions, the only response Naruto got were sinfully sharp knives of air being thrown at him. Once again, he executed his plan but this time around, his stamina was running thin and his swift, fast punches were much harder to keep up and, soon enough, all he could do was dodge behind large objects and just lay low whenever a chair, a rug, an actual knife or any item of furniture in the apartment came falling down on him. If the murderous aura emanating from the creature he'd identify as a ghost wasn't enough of a hint, the blades were enough to tell him that he wasn't welcome here.

"Shit! Can you stop throwing sharp objects at me already?!" Naruto shouted from behind the sofa as a screwdriver nearly cut open his thigh. "I want to have a fair fight, and I don't want to die fighting for an apartment when I still have lots of things that I want to do!"

For a second, it seemed as if all had gone quiet; even the murderous aura behind him had settled down. Anxious at the sudden calmness in the proverbial storm, Naruto peered around the side of the sofa in an effort to check on what was happening. When he came face to face with the handsome ghost, he blinked in shock and fiercely recoiled backwards and, without meaning to, his hand fell on an upright nail. Instantly, he shrieked and snatched his hand away in pain, nursing his throbbing palm close to his chest.

"What do you wish to live for?"

His attention was instantaneously jerked from his palm to the lovely stranger at the unexpected sound of his deep voice. "Eh?"

"I don't repeat my words."

"Umm…I heard you. To answer your question… well, I want to become a pro-boxer. It's been my lifelong dream since I knew what's what so if you killed me here, I'd become a ghost too, with regrets and unfinished business. If you get in my way or kill me, I _swear_ I'll hunt your ass down and make you experience a hell you've never experienced before for doing what you've done to me!"

The ghost stared at him and smirked amusedly. "This is a very interesting way to beg for your life."

"Who's begging, you bastard?! I simply want to have an honest fight, without anything deadly being aimed at me and without supernatural shit being used to kill me. To make things clear, I'll tell you now that the end result of this fight will also determine who gets the apartment."

"I fight with what I see fit, since there's no need for me to follow through with rules a human's made. As far as I'm concerned, this apartment belongs to me, you're trespassing _and _appeared unwanted here, so you're going to be treated how I see fit for someone who's intruding on what's mine."

"Yours my ass! I paid cash for this shithole and it's _mine_! Now, I don't know what you did when you were human, but this apartment of yours have been bought by me, I even have the lease right here! If there's someone you want to haunt, then go haunt the bastard who sold it to me!"

"Worthless objects like papers don't mean a thing to me. You're still invading what's mine."

Naruto snorted, seeing as his conversation with the ghost made him feel like he was conversing with a mountain of rocks; in fact, the mere absurdity of him even _talking_ to a ghost was enough to make him face-palm mentally. He was sure that, if he said anything about this to his best friend, she'd do one of two things – either laugh at his inevitable descent into insanity, or immediately cart him off to a mental asylum for rehabilitation purposes.

"Then you're refusing to fight fair and square with me?"

"I can only promise that your death would be quick."

"So what's your final answer?"

When the air started turning gold, Naruto knew all discussions were put aside. He sighed and pulled something out of his right jacket pocket and, gritting his teeth, he quickly opened the bottle he'd pulled out and splashed it on the floating creature, just in time for the solid knives –now fully formed of gold particles – to fly his way, aiming straight for his heart.

As the bottle's contents took effect, he looked at the shocked eyes of the ghost lying powerlessly on the ground and, at the sight; Naruto ruffled his hair in distress. "I actually didn't want to resort to this, but you forced me to, with your killing intent and your refusal to have a fair fight."

"–_How_?" mouthed the incredulous ghost.

Naruto knelt down and explained. "You see, when I woke up this morning, I knew this apartment was haunted, so I took some measures, you didn't think I'd walk in defenseless, did you? I went to a monk and explained my entire situation to him, and then this," he pulled out the half empty bottle and continued, "was given to me. Seems like the water inside have been blessed by some sutras. I'm not exactly sure about what's in it, but he said it was supposed to restrict you if you were really a ghost with unfinished business, and judging from your appearance, it seemed to do the trick."

Long, faint fingers stretched towards him as the pale face furiously roared: "Will…kill..yo…u…!"

"If I were you, I'd go back on that death threat; you see, unless I chant a particular phrase, you'll forever be bound to this ground… you'll be weak for all eternity, forever robbed of the ability to move or even _speak_. Now, I really don't mind letting you lay here forever, but since I have a big heart, I'll give you one last chance, which you're free to either take, or refuse."

"Fuck…you."

"I see you've still retained some power," the blond started, standing up. "And well, I guess it's your loss. Stay glued to the ground for all I care. In the meantime, I'll go unpack and settle into _my_ rightful place."

Having said that, Naruto grinned and bowed to the fuming ghost on his floor, before going off to the room his luggage was in. Since it was getting late and he was tired, he did a minimal amount of cleaning in his temporary bedroom and ignored the rest. About one in the morning, three hours after he'd started, the room was looking far more acceptable. Grinning at his achievement, he walked towards the kitchen, and checked the water, smiling when refreshingly clear water flowed serenely out the tap. The next thing on his agenda was the electricity, which clearly worked – after all, the lights had been on since he'd first entered, and they hadn't turned off since, but to be safe, he reminded himself to check the bills the next morning, since he never knew whether there might be anything wrong with it.

Passing the front hall on his way to his room, Naruto found the ghost still fixed in place and sighed as he glanced pityingly at him. "Look, I really don't want to leave you like this; you probably love this place a lot; hence your possessiveness and the refusal to hand over ownership of the place, but I promise to take really good care of it. With that in mind, you _really _don't need to be scared anymore, so it's fine to pass on."

A deadly glare and the ever-predictable "fuck you" was his only answer.

"Being stubborn never helped anyone, just so you know; besides, you look like you're younger than me and you probably must've died young. Well, I won't hide the fact that I feel pity for you, but I'm not charitable to the extent that I'd allow you to go on a killing rampage with me as the target. I'm kind, but I'm not that much of a fool."

"Who asked your ass for anything?! You can keep that pity and shove it up your a–!"

"Alright, alright! Geez, there's no need for foul language. Well, since we'll be here for a while, I'll introduce myself; it'd be lovely if you respond in kind, but you don't seem like you want to, so I'm not going to push it. I'm Uzumaki Naruto, twenty four-year-old, first-class boxer; though both my parents are dead, I have loads of friends. Well, nice to be living with you, I guess."

"Fuck. You."

"You really need to update your dictionary." The blond sighed, then proceeded to stand up. "I guess there's no other choice then. I'm tired and I'm going to bed, so if you need anything – not that you will, since you're a ghost and all – call me and I'll be right over."

At this, the blond bid goodnight to his captured ghost and skipped happily to his bed, leaving a very disturbed, angry and confused creature glued helplessly to his front hall's floor.

* * *

Naruto had learnt a few things concerning his ghost thanks to his observational skills. Firstly, it was clearly a male, and thus would be referred to as a 'he' from now on. Secondly, he had a temper on par with a hurricane, so he'd be dealt with calmly. Thirdly, he wasn't visible to other people besides himself –this was demonstrated by Sakura and the three movers who'd brought the rest of his things to his new apartment – so Naruto was alone in this entire mess. Lastly, the ghost was a mulish, yet attractive, being that made Naruto at a loss in regards to the specter's fate, which, sadly, he was still contemplating.

"I still don't believe it." Naruto's friend, Sabaku Gaara, muttered between gulps of water. "How is it that you have a residential ghost that nobody's noticed yet?"

"Easy, nobody can see him. For some reason, he only shows himself to me."

"And you're not scared by this?"

"Hmm…" Naruto tightened his boxing gloves methodically and shook his head. "Not really… I mean, I don't deny the shocking fright I got the first time my things were scattered all over the place, but then, when I came to terms with it, it wasn't scary. Besides, my ghost isn't scary. He's just a little feisty, like a stray cat."

"You're one weird human being, you know that?"

He grinned, starting his boxing training by punching the sandbag. "I try."

"But seriously, Naruto, don't you need to get someone to exorcise him? He's been with you for, what; five or six days now… don't you think it's best to allow him to move on, instead of keeping him hostage?"

"Actually, it's been seven days, and I'm not keeping him hostage. He's entitled to his freedom… if he agreed to my rooming conditions."

"Which are?"

"He needs to stop with this silly killing intent of his. Normally, I wouldn't mind sharing an apartment –since he's so attached to mine, I'd be fine with sharing, but I can't sleep tight knowing a ghost is after my life. So the first thing he's to do is swear that he won't do any harm to me."

Gaara frowned at the words of his professional boxing rival. "That's all? You're going to forget he's some random corpse's soul and just allow him to room in with you like it's a normal thing?"

"Normal is overrated; besides, even if he looks fierce and he's scary as hell, that ghost's still a child, probably only eighteen or so, and I can't bring myself to make a child homeless, even if he's some ethereal being. Besides, where does it say that humans and ghosts can't live cohesively?"

"Um, in every known religious book. Question is, Naruto, are you even _hearing_ what you're saying? Not only are you seeing a ghost no one sees, you want to room together with him… seriously, are you insane?"

The blond stopped punching the bag and frowned at his friend. "Why, Gaara, you're sounding an awful lot like Sakura now. Is it that strange for me to consider helping him?"

"Helping is one thing, and allowing a vengeful spirit to live with you with free mobility to possess you at any moment is another thing entirely. You could always help him from a distance by calling a monk over or something like that."

"Nah, a monk would do shit to him I won't understand, so I won't be really helping. See, what I want to do is have him give me the apartment freely, and not by force."

"That would never happen. Seriously, have you never watched horror movies? The ghost always wins and the protagonist always dies."

"Those are movies; this is reality."

"Movies were based _on_ reality, dumbass."

"Well, not in my reality, besides, his death threats are really funny to listen and he makes the apartment lively, so I really don't mind having him around."

Tired of the airhead's rambling and ready to fight a few bouts after his long break, Gaara stood up and hopped inside the ring. With a challenging gaze, he took hold of the sandbag Naruto was bent on smashing and said to his boxing rival.

"Your gloating time's over. Now, let's start our match."

Excited blue orbs turned to the redhead's in a silent affirmative, before the blond shouted.

"You're so on, Sabaku!"

* * *

"So, you finally agree to hear my conditions?" Naruto said, attempting to keep the happiness bottled up inside, rather than let it radiate out.

"Stop spewing unnecessary words and hurry up with it, before I beat you to death!"

The blond grinned at the death threat and leaned down, holding the long piece of sutra in his left hand. "Alright then; my first condition is this, you've got to promise that you won't kill me, hurt me or damage my hands, since the hands of a boxer are his life."

"I knew you'd pull something chicken like this."

"I'm not chicken," he continued with his bright grin, "just cautious. You still don't trust me, so until that time comes, this acts as an insurance policy of sorts for me."

The shining, bound ghost released a sound resembling an unsatisfied grunt, but complied with the other's wish with a grumbled "fine, I agree."

"Nope, you have to say, '_I promise not to hurt you in any way possible, especially your hands_'."

"This is stupid. I don't go back on my words, so when I said I agree it means that I agree."

"I won't consider that to be an agreement until you say those words though, since a promise differs from a mere agreement."

Rolling his eyes at the stupidity before him, the handsome ghost grudgingly repeated: "I promise not to hurt your ass in any way possible, especially those worthless hands that can't even hit my form, let alone allow you to win a single fight against me."

"Well done, Blue-chan. Now, here's my second condition – I want you to tell me your name. Calling you Blue-chan is okay with me, but you clearly aren't a fan of the nickname I've bestowed upon you, so it would be best for the both of us to have a name to call you with."

"Enough with this nonsense; I won't obey such a senseless condition, simply because you want some peace of mind. If you insist on it, though, I'd much prefer being bound to this ground over stating my holy name to some worthless, lowly being like you!"

Naruto sighed and slumped to the ground, coming face to face with the nasty male. "Yara, yara, I knew this one would be a hard condition for you to accept, but you don't need to be _that _rude."

"Hmph!"

"Okay, I won't push it then, until you agree on telling me your real name, I'll call you Blue-chan instead. Once you do, I'll take it as a sign that you trust me."

"You really are stupid, you know that? It's my first time meeting an idiotic human like you."

"Well, I prefer the word '_unique' _but… moving on, my third condition is easy, and I don't think you'll have any objections to it, I want you to live here with me!"

At this, Naruto found himself being stared at, as if he was an otherworldly creature, which was ironic, considering that the ghost staring at him was the otherworldly being here.

"I take back everything I've said. You're not stupid, you're unbelievably retarded. I don't know what creatures like you should be called, but you're definitely not 'human'; c'mon, are you a fucking moron? Who on earth would say something like that to a fucking _ghost_?! Actually, do you even realize what you're saying?!"

Naruto's golden locks shifted sideways as he tilted his head, intrigued as to why the bound ghost was so surprised at his offer. "Yes, I do. Besides, I don't see why I'm moronic for asking you to stay, since it's obvious that you really love this apartment to the point that, even after death, you refuse to part with it. Even though you've attacked me before and have issued multiple death threats to me, I can't bring myself to think that you're bad in any way, let alone some evil spirit that should be exorcised – I mean, even the light surrounding you appears as beautiful, calm and relaxing colors. You don't emit a dangerous aura anymore and you don't appear to be vengeful either, so allowing you to stay here is fine; fine for me, in any case. Besides, you're a ghost akin to air, so you won't consume water or food, you won't need sleeping quarters and I just _know _that having you around would be great fun!"

The skeptical look stayed resolutely on the transparent face of the handsome ghost as he muttered to the blond. "You're an idiot."

Naruto released a tired sigh and replied. "Fine; think whatever you please about me, but stay here and _don't_ disappear while I take off your limitations"

"Hmph, I'll honor the promise I've made, and nothing else."

"That's good enough, I guess."

With a grin on his face and a sutra in his hands, Naruto started reciting the spell. It was a bumpy ride, since some words were written in kanji that was hard for him to read, but he remembered the pronunciation from the monk and, eventually, he prevailed. Once he ended his chanting, he and the creature on his floor waited for the supernatural bindings to release the latter, which they did after fifteen arduous minutes. Mentally, Naruto wondered if his unbalanced chanting was the reason for the delay, since the monk had said that the bindings would disappear when he'd uttered the last few words of the chant.

Again, like the unforgettable night he encountered the ghost, Naruto was struck with awe. Gold and blue sparks, enchanting in their beauty, danced before his eyes. No other word could describe or give justice to the sight except for beautiful, and at this thought, his mouth eased into a satisfied and blissful smile.

"What the fuck are you looking at?!"

"Nothing, nothing," He airily muttered as he rose to his feet and stretched his tired muscles before the floating teenage ghost. "Anyhow, since we'll be living together, I think it would be best to establish some initial ground rules."

"I still haven't agreed to that condition-"

"Right," Naruto continued with a smile, "since you don't need food, water or a place to sleep, the rules should be simple, so I think they'll just amount to information that I'll give you now. Firstly, I'll put up a chart which will notify you of where I'll be and if I had practice, a match, a camp or a tournament. This is so you won't get worried at my frequent disappearances–"

"Who do you think would be worried about your ass, huh?! The minute you disappear is the minute I'm taking over this apartment!"

"…Secondly, you're welcome into all of the rooms, well, except for my bedroom, since I still remember when you shuffled around my belongings; which, by the way, wasn't very nice of you."

"I'll go into any room I want. You're not the boss of me!"

Sighing for the umpteenth time, Naruto shifted his hands so that they rested on his hips in the universal sign of exasperation. "You were a problem child before you died, weren't you? Do you _really _need to disagree with everything I say just because you feel like it?"

"I disagree because everything you say is stupid. I don't care about you so I don't need any notifications regarding your whereabouts and I don't care about your room so I don't need to be told I shouldn't go in. Basically, I don't care about your rules because they're a load of crap!"

With that, the ghost he was trying to reason with disappeared right before his eyes, leaving a faint trail of golden dust behind. At the sudden disappearance, Naruto rubbed his forehead and frowned.

"Dear God, I seem to have stumbled face-first into yet another problem."

* * *

"Thank you very much! I'll do my best to win!"

Naruto acknowledged the older male's enthusiastically shining eyes as he responded to the man's words of encouragement. Once upon a time, he might've been unsettled by the hidden glint in the other's eyes, but he had already gotten used to it by now. In the beginning, when he was still at a rebellious stage of his life, the youth-obsessed, health-freak individual, whom he later identified as his sensei, was someone that seemed like a wackjob, but he later learnt that the elder person wasn't really such a bad person after all. Tightening the lace on his boxing gloves and shoving his mouthguard into place as he stopped himself from reminiscing too much, Naruto hopped into the ring and repeated his sensei's valuable advice to himself. With the blood in his veins pounding excitedly inside of him and with excitement burning through his system, the blond male prepared himself as the signal for his long and tiring match sounded.

Although the sharp sound of the bell was sure to herald the onslaught of fierce bouts filled with violent hits and blood-soaked spit, Naruto eased comfortably into the plan he and his mentor had strategized beforehand. The first seven bouts would consist of him being on the defense, in the hopes of tiring his opponent while maintaining a high level of energy – of course, he would employ a defense mechanism that allowed him to earn points with the judges, but his moment to shine would be in the last five rounds. Like a lion released from its cage, he would tear his opponent to pieces, and thus would demonstrate his earned nickname of 'The Red Storm' to the stern trio.

He had conducted the thought-out strategy in his mind and followed the instructions to the letter. He ducked when necessary, delivered sneaky body-rips when opportunities arose, and valiantly guarded his face when attacked… but it wasn't enough. Despite the seemingly-flawless plan he'd brought into the boxing ring, his opponent proved to be the flaw in his battle-plan, due to his bear-like body and kangaroo-like stamina. His adversary gave no openings for Naruto to exploit and, to add insult to injury, the blond was dealt a black eye during a careless moment when he'd fleetingly let his guard down because of the misconception that he was somehow 'slow'.

As the bouts continued and the all-too-short breaks were mercilessly cut short by the bell's piercing ring, Naruto attempted to stand his ground and clear his head. Although he wasn't academically gifted, his lithe body compensated for his mental incapacities – heck, Sakura had labeled him a 'ninja' when she'd seen him in action – and the blond could feel his swift advantage pulling through as the match dragged on. Allowing his fluids to surge through his energized body, Naruto pounced at his professional foe and employed the Bolo punch, which was a tricky hit that involved dropping his back hand and swiveling to give the impression that a heavy hook or a straight was approaching, before using his lead hand to land a powerful blow. In a successfully elegant maneuver that not only fooled his opponent, but earned him a loud cheer from the approving audience.

With his self-confidence reinstated by his tactical risk, Naruto steered the match back to its intended course and, utilizing the last of his stamina and speed, he landed a finishing KO, which, technically speaking, was more of a TKO than a KO. However, as his victory was announced and he collected the golden trophy, he exited the ring to loud cheers and applause from the animated crowd and was momentarily distracted from the throbbing of his black eye. As usual, his sensei flew forward to greet his rattled bones with a crushing hug, and as he rolled his blue eyes good-naturedly, the blond responded with a curt squeeze before extricating himself from the unwanted attention.

"That was more than I'd hoped for! You've grown so very strong, Naruto!" The old man exclaimed with starry and tear-filled eyes.

"Gai-sensei, I'm too tired for this today, how about we do this tomorrow?" He replied, already knowing where this little act was going.

The man with the bowl-cut shook his head and hooked Naruto's arm with his, before happily shepherding the blond to the changing room, where the assistants were coming to aid him. "There's no such thing as being too tired for a drinking party! We have to celebrate your growth and that spectacular win! What type of sensei would I be if I didn't throw a celebratory party for my excellent pupil?!"

"Um… you'd be a sane one that values my dwindling energy levels."

The voices of approval for free alcohol and chicks – which, amazingly, were acquaintances of Gai – overrode his faint voice and, like every match he'd won, Naruto was unwillingly dragged off to a drinking party that he was sure would leave its effect on his head and body the next morning.

He released a loud moan in objection, which went unnoticed in the noisy room.

* * *

"If you think I'd even lift a finger to help your drunken ass out of there then you're dreaming!"

Naruto looked with glazed, unfocused eyes at the pissed-off ghost floating ever so strikingly over his slumped body and, for no apparent reason; he started giggling like a schoolgirl in a way that made the imaginary vein inside the ghost's translucent head pop.

"You said lift a finger," an amused giggle followed, "but how will you lift a finger to touch me when you'll go straight through me anyway?!"

At this statement, the giggles turned into laughter, hysterical laughter that echoed in the solid walls of the steamy bathroom and set the unsettled ghost even more on edge. The handsome black-haired ghost was _this_ close to breaking his promise by murdering the pathetic human who –for some unknown and very fucked-up reason – had decided that taking a bath, with an infected black eye and a dead-drunk system, was suddenly a fucking dandy idea. Not only did the ingrate scatter his clothes on the ground and jump into warm, steamy water inside the tub, he'd started calling for help in a fucking annoying voice when he ended up slipping every time he'd attempted to stand up.

"You know what, go fuck yourself!"

Unfazed by the potty-mouthed ghost and his threats, Naruto released yet another giggle. "D-Don't swear man, you look better when you don't curse."

"I don't give a flying fuck what you think about me! I'm leaving, don't think of calling me, and if you want to die, die somewhere I won't have to bother with your stupid corpse!"

The blond's blurry eyes watched the pissed-off teen vanish in a shower of golden sparkles and, even though he knew he was acting in an infuriating manner right now, Naruto just couldn't stop himself from giggling. It was due to his intolerant nature of alcohol. Once drunk, he would turn into an overly-careless and irritatingly optimistic individual that people wouldn'thesitate to strangle. And, despite his diagnosis of his drunken situation, another set of giggles forced itself past his lips.

On the other side of the cozy apartment, the bothered ghost attempted to stay calm as various noises, composed of giggles, crashes and something hard thudding on the ground, reached his highly-sensitive ears. He wasn't obligated to help – after all, there was nowhere in those three lousy conditions that stated that he needed to help when the douchebag decided that life was too much for him and he should die giggling – so he didn't need to move, float or do anything to aid him… because it simply wasn't his problem.

Just as he reassured himself of his obligatory lack towards the idiotic blond, the giggles died down and the surroundings became ominously quiet. It'd been a while since the air around him had been this quiet, three weeks, to be exact, and, in a sudden moment of understanding, the ghost realized that it'd also been three weeks since the idiot had infiltrated his life. And, in his silly way, had made it look like he was doing him a favor by asking him to room together. It was his home to begin with and the one who should ask if he should be allowed to live in the apartment or not was the annoying blond, not him. For all he cared, the other male could die and he wouldn't care, and yet…

It was justtoo damn quiet!

He floated away from the room he'd chosen to reside in and went to see what was going on; instead of feeling worried, anxious or, for that matter, any human feelings –he'd disregarded those useless emotions that fateful night – he was simply curious as to the cause that made the infuriatingly kind blond and, by extension, the boisterous racket that terrorized his life, _this_ quiet. He needed to know, because if it was an enemy of the boxer, then he was sure to befriend it.

The sight he beheld caused him to float in wonder. It was beyond his comprehension how a grown man could get himself in such a tangled mess and, for the first time in an extremely long time, the faint pink of his lips twitched upwards in a semi-lunar curve that imitated a smile. Of course, since his heart was devoid of human emotions and his face had long forgotten how to show anything expect hatred, regret, vengeance and animosity, he was merely giving off an impression of a smile, but nonetheless, it was a valiant attempt at displaying emotion.

"I've said it millions of times, but you truly are an idiot."

His soft words went unheard as the unconscious blond continued to lay face-down, wallowing in the mixture of vomit and hair products his pathetic attempt to exit the bath had made. Gently, the enchantingly ethereal being swirled one of his fingers around and, with a startling lack of effort, the human adult was twirled around and set back into the shallow porcelain tub he'd tried so hard to get out of in the first place. Without missing a beat, a bar of soap floated to the unconscious blond and began lathering the toned body effortless, followed by a scrubbing brush, a warm stream of water and a soft towel to finish off the tanned boxer's failed bath.

The now-calm ghost directed the mop and bucket to tidy up the mess inside the bathroom and, with another thrust of his middle and index fingers, the clean blond was floated onto his bed. As the silence of the pleasant night drifted around the unresting spirit, a pang of nostalgia shot through the being as he dressed the other in his pajamas. And while he placed the boxer in, the moonlight streaming from a crack in the window, the soft glow of the lunar satellite highlighted the features of the man. Wrapped in an air of quiet acceptance, the ghost glanced down… at his roommate.

Turning away from the bed and dimming the lights, the ghost pulled the comforters over his sleeping roommate, before he whispered in a voice that only the walls and the moon heard.

"The one who rescued your stinking ass from drowning in your own vomit tonight… was your 'Blue-chan'. Just so you know, my name is Sasuke, and if you don't want to be killed by me then you'd better remember it…"

* * *

**Well, that's it for now, guys! :D I'm pretty excited about this story since it's been my lifelong dream to write a Naruto-Ghost fic~ *_* so this is a dream coming true! I hope to meet with your support from now on and thanks for reading. Reviews are deeply appreciated. :D**


	2. Chapter Two

**Author's Notes****:**

**Thanks everyone for the attention you gave. Whenever I open my inbox and see the reviews, favorites, follows for this story, I get happy~ :D Thank you for making me happy! And roses-scented thanks to my amazing, wonderful, great Beta, Fyrshi, you know how much I love you for editing this chapter and hopefully you'll continue to make this story the best with your exquisite edits, arigatou! :D Now, I'll leave you all to relish with the second chapter. Let loose, have fun and enjoy the story~**

* * *

"Naruto, you're not serious, are you?"

"Yes, I am. He hasn't spoken to me for a whole week – a WHOLE FREAKING WEEK, Sakura. And no matter what I do to try and attract his attention, he just goes off and ignores me. I've tried everything and nothing seems to work, so I'm getting really frustrated right now."

Sakura knew by now that her friend had his quirks, and she accepted him for who he was, but now she was starting to think he had simply gone insane, and would need a professional to handle him. Already, she was thinking about possible counselors and mental asylums that might accept him.

"Just let me get this straight," She eased, trying to grasp the whole truth before she ran to the authorities and informed them of the escape of a case from one of their strict asylums. "Your roommate, a ghost, is refusing to talk to you, a human, because you became incredibly drunk and puked in the bathroom due to crazy celebrations after a match?"

"Yep!"

"The same ghost you ran away from my house to go exorcise?"

"Turned out he doesn't need an exorcism since he's just a cranky, not vengeful, spirit. Actually, he's closer to a troubled teenager than an evil ghost."

"Naruto," She sighed, unable to keep up with his logic. "I can't handle you this early in the morning, especially without my coffee."

"But I don't have anyone else to ask for advice beside you, Sakura. You have to help me!" He exclaimed in exasperation.

The pink haired woman snorted at her own gentleness towards him and ruffled her messy locks, allowing them to fall gently over her blue polka-dot pajamas. "I swear to God, I'm just too kind to you. Still, if I'm going to help, there is some basic information I'll need to correct and verify with you, which you will _not _argue with me about."

"I can give whatever you want to know about my situation. What do you need to correct, though?"

"Firstly," she began with a serious look in her shining jade-coloured eyes. "You don't have a roommate and secondly, you didn't see or know any ghost. Those are what I need to correct for you and, as I stated before, I will not accept any arguing in this matter."

Naruto scowled, trying to extract some sense from her modifications. "That doesn't make sense. How can you help me if you're denying the root of my problem's existence?"

"Baka-ruto, if you want my help, this is the only way for me to be able to give it. You may not think much of it, but I'm not that big of a fan of ghost stories and if you're been honest about one living with you, then I don't want to know anything about it. So, I'll help you on the condition that we treat him as a human being, and a _living _human being at that. I've enough troubles in my life and I don't need a potential horror case to be added to them."

"…He's not scary, though."

"Naruto!"

The blond looked at the wooden table before him and his facial muscles took turns in changing his expression, before they finally settled on a nice scowl. "Fine, you can do whatever you want and alter whatever facts to suit your truth; just don't call them corrections, because they aren't. They're your thoughts, just as mine are, and nothing proves them to be right so I can't argue with you. Despite this, you should know that I don't like how you're denying his identity for your own ease of mind… but I won't disagree with you and your opinion. Anyways, what's your advice?"

"Before I get to that, just give me an answer to this; why do you care for his attention anyway?"

At this, he raised a thick brow at her. "What's up with that question?"

"Nothing, just answer it. It would make me more acquainted with your situation."

"Hmm…I can't really say, but as you know, I've always been a busybody, and it irks me to think that he's ignoring me for something as stupid as being a fool and drinking my ass off."

"Yeah, but not to this extent. You've woken me up, at an ungodly hour, and you're being frustrated just because he's ignoring you. You've never overreacted like this before, and you've been ignored an awful a lot. What's with him that makes you this…_concerned_?"

Naruto released a sigh then ruffled his morning locks, trying to crack out a reason that would satisfy her. "Umm…I don't really know, but maybe because he reminds me of myself back then. When I was in my rebellious stage during high school, it was a shitty time for me and I'd lost hope a lot of times. Back then, if I didn't have you, Gaara and Gai-sensei, maybe I'd have committed suicide or ended up as some corpse in a ditch from one of my many street fights… Perhaps I can relate to his hidden sorrows due to my own experiences, so that's why I want to know why he's blatantly ignoring me for such a lousy reason."

"How do you know he resembles you anyway? Maybe you're just trying to force your judgments onto him simply because you want to help him – which, according to you, is akin to what I'm doing right now."

Naruto shook his head with a confident smile, and with a tone matching his facial expression he retorted: "It's his eyes. He has the same eyes as I did when I was seventeen, lost in my own regrets and drunk on the self-loathing path I'd paved for myself. I understand because his eyes speak louder and they say much more than his lips."

In turn, Sakura sighed in and stood up at the sound of her coffee machine buzzing as it told her that the beans inside had successfully been converted to her own special drug. Walking towards the kitchen, she poured herself a huge mug of the tranquilizing drink and added a heavy amount of milk and sugar to the other mug containing the blond's coffee, before she returned to her living room.

With a nod, she handed Naruto the pink mug she reserved for guests, and continued the conversation where they'd left off. "Okay, I guess that makes sense… however, do you really think you can help him?"

Naruto put the warm mug onto the table and contemplated her question. "It's not just about helping him, though…I think that I just want him to know there's someone here who understands his pains and the things he's going through. I'd be absolutely ecstatic if he was able to get that and move on to the next worl–"

"Naruto, what did we say about his identity as a human?" She warned, taking a sip of her drink.

The blond smiled sheepishly in reply. "Sorry, Sakura-chan, I just got carried away with my explanation. So what's your advice for me?"

"Well, you said he stopped talking to you right after that night, so my guess is that he's just irritated at you for your actions or words… You do know you turn into an annoying jerk whenever you drink, right?"

"Oh, I remembered that, but I thought about it and it doesn't seem right. It appears like he's mad about something… deeper."

"Deeper? What the hell did you do, Baka-ruto?"

"I don't know… I'm not even sure if I _did _anything to him. I was pretty much dead drunk, so my memories of that night are extremely foggy right now."

"…Then just forget about it. You have a bad memory to begin with, and alcohol only exacerbates it even further. For now, just try to act normal; maybe he's just going through some phase '_humans'_ like him go through. In any case, don't stress too much about these little things."

"Would that actually work, though? I don't want him to move away…"

"Well, if he was simply annoyed with your drunken self and couldn't put up with something as simple as that, then maybe it would be for the best that he moves away. However, if the reason was something else you did or said to him, then only time can tell you what you need to know. That's all I can say on the topic."

"That's not very helpful, Sakura; I could have thought about that myself." Naruto whined, earning a smack to his body from his annoyed conversation partner.

"Douchebag, you had no useful information to give so I did best with what you had. Just be thankful I didn't kick your ass out the minute I saw your pathetic face!"

Snorting at the emergence of her lousy character, Naruto gulped down the rest of the now-cold coffee and stood up. "It doesn't change the fact that you were no help at all. I came here thinking you'd have a solution to all of my troubles, yet all you could croak out was 'just ignore it'."

"Hey! Just what do you think I am? I'm not some magician that solves all your problems with a wave of my magic wand!Grow a spine already and face your problems head-on, because I won't have an epiphany to explain the shit you did to your roommate simply because you believe it's my responsibility!"

Naruto directed a petulant gaze at her and muttered in a hushed voice. "…I'm disappointed in you, Sakura. You've lost your touch."

For Sakura, that was the last straw. In three seconds flat, Naruto was hit, kicked, and thrown out of her vast apartment. Nursing the bump that started forming when his head collided with the wall, Naruto mentally facepalmed at his foolish act; he should've known better than to aim for Sakura's temper when she was still in her pajamas. The bruises on his shoulder were testament to her crankiness in the morning, and were just another demonstration of the fact that Sakura really needed anger-control sessions and that he needed self-protection sessions –besides boxing, since he couldn't use that on her. Sighing, he reluctantly walked back to his problem-filled apartment, still nursing the injuries he'd sustained from his vicious eviction.

On the other side of the door, Sakura cursed her own awful memory in not telling Naruto of the important piece of information that he needed to know, as it didn't occur to her until it was too late. Sakura groaned and blamed her forgetfulness on the fact that she'd been woken up far earlier than she was accustomed to.

"Guess I'll just have to let him know another time."

Yawning tiredly, she went back to bed to wait for her usual time to come, where she'd need to get up, get dressed and head to yet another tiring day of her training. At the prospect of another hellish day in the life of the next-best designer, she moaned again and stumbled into bed.

* * *

Naruto blinked at the sharp, black eyes that stared straight into his the minute he walked inside his apartment. He tried to stumble back a few steps to be able to breathe without being afraid to suck the other inside his lung – since he was just like thin air – but that task proved impossible thanks to some eerie restrictions that were keeping him firmly in place. Feeling confused, he questioned the transparent form.

"Umm…Blue-chan? Is something wrong?"

"Where have you been?"

At the pissed off tone, Naruto knew he'd need to watch his words very carefully, so he started with a calm tenor to ease the ethereal being into a relaxed state. "I went to Sakura's place. Did something happen?"

"A- When you want your shit delivered here, _don't _wander out, because I don't appreciate strangers roaming through my territory. B- When you want friends over, _don't _ask them over, since I won't hesitate into sending them to where I am."

When the threat was made perfectly clear to him, Naruto nodded to convey his understanding and replied. "Got it, sorry for disturbing you. But if you don't mind me asking you… who came to visit?"

The ghost seemed to be satisfied with having his orders listened to so, with a twirl from his fingers, he freed Naruto's intangible bindings so he could stumble to whatever place he wished to stumble to. As the blond stumbled back, the ghost curtly answered. "Some redhead who tried to poke his nose into my apartment. Hmph, I showed him right!"

At the proud and evil smirk, millions of unwanted scenarios played inside Naruto's head and he would've lashed out with vehement questions about Gaara's wellbeing, were it not for his recollection of Sakura's words. He needed to take a deep breath and act normal, since whatever the other was saying didn't prove that he did anything bad to Gaara. After all, he had just warned him of what would happen if his friends trespassed a second time, which meant that he didn't kill Gaara this time, but wouldn't hesitate to do so the second time. Having his insides cool down at this thought, Naruto inquired for confirmation.

"You didn't kill him or anything like that, right?"

"That shithead wasn't even worthy of my wrath. I just played with him a little and gave him a small bump to agonize over. Well, I taught him a lesson of what would happen to him the next time he ever sticks his stinking nose into other's homes when they're not in."

Naruto ran a hand through his golden locks and sighed. "I think I should just thank God you didn't do anything to his hands – but please, try not to scare me like that next time. Anyways, I'm going to take a bath and then going shopping, since the fridge is empty, so you're welcome to tag along afterwards, if you want."

The ghost just floated by idly, as if he hadn't said a word at all, and Naruto exhaled in tired exasperation. With the kind of treatment that he was experiencing, it was crystal clear that they had made their way back to point zero, where his ghost refused to acknowledge the other's good will and spent most of his time in a fixed position... just like a beautiful painting hanging on his wall. That had gotten him thinking back to that awful night in an attempt to remember something – anything – that could be even _remotely_ connected to why he was receiving the proverbial cold shoulder from the ghost… but again, it was all blanks.

He remembered scant events in the haziness of his drunken state. He went to the bathroom, blanked out, vomited, blanked out again, woke in the middle of the night in his bed, blanked out yet again, and finally awoke to the sound of his alarm clock –the alarm clock he had no memory of setting– with a severe hangover that made his body shudder in pain.

And then something beautiful happened.

For a small moment, the golden sparkles following his ghostly roommate had turned into a brightly warm hue of red, which mixed well with the icy navy-blue swathe he pulled under him, causing Naruto to be lost in a state of awe. Then, when their eyes met and the ghost made sure the other was wide awake, the red faded back to the normal gold sparkles instantaneously, and Naruto was left to wonder whether it had been a fragment of his imagination or if it was real.

What was more confusing, though, was how he'd been treated in the moments that followed this; it was like the other had lost all animosity towards him and decided to turn over a new friendly leaf with the oblivious blond. However, the moment he opened his mouth to say something… his vision turned pitch black, the sky darkened and his bedroom was covered in a shadowy death-like coat that alleviated itself as soon as he blinked.

The blond frowned at his recollections – if he wasn't wrong, the moment he spoke was the moment the other had decided that the silent treatment was to be applied to him. But…what did he say in that sentence that ruined all the progress he'd worked his ass off to achieve? Just _what_ did he say?!

As he started discarding his clothes to the wash-basket, Naruto racked his brain for the elusive key to his problems. It wasn't something big or humiliating, and he'd made sure to never curse the other –since he was a teen younger than him– so what was it? What did he say that was so bad to deserve the silent treatment?

Naruto finally recalled his words, but the memory only caused his frown to deepen further; all he'd done was open his mouth with a wide grin and chirpily blurt out 'good morning, Blue-chan'. Somehow, that simple greeting had shaken the whole room to the ground, but as far as he knew, there was nothing wrong with that sentence; after all, it was the greeting he instinctively repeated each and every morning. He'd say it even if he didn't see the ghost, because he knew he'd be floating somewhere within the apartment and his words would surely reach the other's ears… and yet, on that dreadful morning, those words proved to be the wrong thing to say.

At this thought, another cycle of questions began forming within Naruto's head. Was it the name? No, he'd used it on numerous occasions and the ghost didn't seem to mind. Had it the 'good morning' part then? He'd said that multiple times, and the ghost had no objections either. Then what had ticked him off? What inflamed the bomb of silence to explode on his face?!

His brain was beginning to spiral in an endless cycle, so Naruto chose to put a lid on this subject for the time being, in an attempt to act as if nothing had happened and hope that, eventually, Blue-chan would believe his act and they'd return to normal… well, as normal as the situation could be. He assured himself that it was the best measure for now…yet the suspicion that something wrong had happened that morning didn't leave his heart.

"BLUE-CHAN! What did I do wrong?! Answer me!"

It was just too frustrating to continue like this. The blond exited the bathroom with only a towel tied over his waist while his torso was engulfed in soapy foam. He gritted his teeth when the ghost was nowhere to be found and called –more like shouted– the nickname again in an attempt to penetrate the walls with his voice, and thus summon the ghost to him.

"BLUE-CHAN! Come here! We need to talk!"

Ten more minutes of calling later resulted in the subject of his frustration finally chose to reveal himself. By this time, his body had entered the initial stages of hypothermia and his teeth had begun chattering against each other as a faint means to inform him to either get back into the warm water, or put on some clothes before he froze to death.

A cold, calm gaze faced him, accompanied by a snarl from those faint rosy lips. "What?"

"I'm sorry! I sincerely apologize for whatever it is that I've done or said to hurt your feelings. I was drunk, and I don't remember much, but still I'm very sorry! Won't you forgive me already?"

"It's pointless to apologize for something you don't even remember doing."

The ghost started disappearing after his icy reply, but refusing to accept his rejection, Naruto tried harder to sway him. "But I've hurt you. I have a very bad memory and drinking doesn't fix it either, but I don't want us to continue like this, so please, whatever it's that I did wrong, I'm sorry for it!"

"I told you already; it's pointless, since you didn't do anything."

Naruto blinked at the words. "Huh? I didn't do anything?"

"You didn't."

"Then why are you ignoring me?"

The ghost looked everywhere but into the shining azure orbs questioning him, before he lied through his teeth. "I need some alone time. Being with a human isn't good for me because I'm getting weaker and I'm losing my powers. I'm just putting things into their rightful place by distancing myself."

"You're lying." Naruto firmly retorted, before he walked three steps to the right to change his perspective so he would be able to see the facial features the ghost was hiding from him. "I may not know a lot of things, but I know when someone is lying to me, and right now, you're lying. Tell me the truth; why are you ignoring me? Why are you angry? What did I do to hurt your feelings? Tell me, Blue-chan, tell me!"

Suddenly the walls around him turned a murky shade of black –much like what happened that morning– and the windows sealed shut, reintroducing Naruto to the horror of having a spirit get angry with him. The blond braced himself and swallowed past the thick lump in his throat.

"That fucking name! Don't ever call me with that fucking name_ AGAIN_!"

It took Naruto a while amidst the hellish projections he was witnessing to be able think straight, and some time more to connect the ghost's words with his line of inquiry. However, he managed this task in due time, and when he did, he blinked and countered back.

"But I have no other name to call you with; you refused to tell me your name."

Apparently, this seemed to be the wrong answer to counter with, because the darkness engulfing him seemed to only increase in severity. Naruto backed away a few steps when it was apparent that if he didn't, he'd be swamped by the darkness the other was currently emitting. After all, an eerie feeling told him that being engulfed in the shadows wouldn't be very pleasant.

"I have a name, and a proud one at that! Just ask that lousy memory of yours for it!"

The blond blinked and tilted his head at the novelty of the ghost's words. "…I… you told me your name?"

At the completely oblivious gaze directed at him, the ethereal being felt the darkness inside of him subside as he was consumed by lethargy, and as abruptly as it had come, the surrounding darkness he was controlling vanished. His blank eyes looked directly into startled blue ones and, releasing a snort, he turned his back to the unaware male and tiredly answered.

"I've had enough. I'm done wasting my breath. Go fuck yourself and that memory of yours!"

Before Naruto was allowed to explain himself, the angry teenage ghost vanished in swirls of gold. The blond boxer rubbed the back of his head and heaved a sigh, before muttering:

"How did things get so complicated so fast?"

* * *

Naruto winced and deposited the forkful of freshly cooked noodles into his mouth. After the little fit that couldn't even be called a fit was made, his invisible roommate became even more distant and unapproachable than the first night they'd spent together. Of course, they didn't have a working relationship to begin with, but the blond liked to think that he was gradually thawing out the dead male's icy heart. Well… not thawing, per se, but shifting from deathly loathing to frequent detainment, and perhaps to some sort of decent conversations.

Even if that conversation was merely his voice echoing around him.

Naruto sighed and put down the fork, visibly shivering at the iciness that had engulfed his form ever since his argument with the ghost, before he pulled the thick jacket he was wearing tighter around his form. They had already passed the cold days and the weather was getting warmer outside, but for some reason his apartment refused to warm up… and though he knew the source of the sudden change of atmosphere, he could do nothing about it.

Taking his unfinished plate to the sink, he frowned as he dropped the leftovers into the trash. Under normal circumstances, he'd never leave any noodles behind, but currently his appetite was poor, and even the thought of food was intolerable. With the frown still clouding his beautiful features, he deposited the remainder of his leftover noodles into the trashcan and washed his plate, before he went over to his TV set. This was his week off –he had no matches, no tournaments and no training – so there was no work that would require him to lift a ditsy, itsy, bitsy little finger. With carefree abandon, Naruto flipped through the channels, and stopped at a football match.

All he could see were sweaty dudes running around like buffalos in an open field as they pursued a ball. He snorted in derision at their actions and reminded himself to never participate in the shitty sport. It wasn't fancy or classy like the other elegant sports – it was filthy and underhanded, in his opinion – nor did it have the strength behind his boxing, or the excitement and the thrill. Anyone could be a footballer, but only those with privilege, talent and pure determination could aspire to become professional boxers. Of course, there were some people who learned the sport and misused it, but there is always a yin to the yang in all aspect of life.

Having enough of the sport that he didn't appreciate, Naruto shut the TV and leant his head back onto the sofa. With nerves that were strained like thin violin strings, he shouted:

"I. AM. SORRY!"

After that shout, he waited for a reaction, but nothing happened; the walls stood still, the air was still as cold as ever, and the distress inside his heart still remained. Naruto put a hand over his eyes and tried to convey his anxious thoughts in a suppressed whisper.

"I forget stuff easily when I drink, and remembering never works. I'm sorry for forgetting something important like your name, but it wasn't intentional. Back in school, I'd get into different types of problems because of this, which was why I tried to avoid alcohol. Yet that night, I couldn't; it was literally shoved down my throat and I couldn't get it out. Anyhow," the blond shook off the memory of that night and continued his apology, "You have the right to be pissed at me; heck I'd be too if I was in your situation, but still, I have to say I'm sorry…truly sorry. I promise, if you tell me again, if you entrust it to me again, I won't ever forget it! So will you believe in me one more time and allow me to learn your name when I'm sober?"

"…You know, I didn't actually trust you the first time around."

Naruto felt his heartbeat hiccup in shock at the cool voice that resonated from behind, and composed his expression to reveal nothing but ease. Soothing his tense muscles, he turned his head around with a smile and replied to the faint whisper with an equally quiet, "I know, but I'm asking you for trust now, and I hope you can, at least, give me a little by telling me your name."

"I told you my name, and you forgot."

"Which is something I'm very sorry for."

"Do you know what it means for a ghost to tell a mortal his name?"

"Something big?"

"A name holds power, be it a human's, demon's, ghost's or even an animal's. If you reveal your name loosely, this gives your opponent power over you. Humans nonchalantly provide their names to strangers, and they don't see the power they're letting go off or how bad that might affect them in the future. They are foolish enough to have surrendered themselves to others out of affection, but I won't be like them and make the same mistake again."

Naruto's blue eyes softened and, with a shake of his head, he refuted the being's. "Giving out names isn't a mistake; we do so because names are important to us and we want to be called by them. My parents gave me this name and I'm proud of it, so I wouldn't want anyone to call me anything else, because they had a hard time deciding. Whenever I hear my name being called, my heart sings with joy because I remember how much love and care they have for me when they gave me a name. It's not something that people use to harm others with; it's something people use to get closer, for them to bond and connect with others."

"Hmph. A ghost has no need for connecting."

"Well, since I have no idea what it's like up there where dead people continue to haunt Earth, I may not have the right words to counter your argument, but I do know that if I turn into a ghost, I'd get myself a partner. Since I hate the feeling of loneliness the most, the first thing I'd do to stay connected is to haunt a person."

The blue sparkles surrounding the ethereal being shone a little brighter, and Naruto liked to think that it was his doing. "I don't think you'll find anyone who would put up with your idiocy."

"Hmm… I don't think I'll have a problem there," Naruto flopped off the sofa and onto his legs, before he grinned widely at the floating male and added; "Since I'll be heading straight for you."

The ghost's cold, dark eyes widened instantly at the words, and for a second, he felt his face radiate heat as his embarrassment emanated clearly from him. Without his approval, a faint red blush decorated the area surrounding his face, and his eyes widened further when he felt the reaction his ghostly power was showing without his consent.

Naruto was equally startled, but his expression quickly changed to that of amusement at the beautiful mixture of red, blue and gold sparkles wreathing his roommate. The amusement was something he didn't like to keep to himself, so with a happy demeanour he blurted out.

"You're really cute when you're honest."

"C-Cute?! How dare you?!"

The blond was successful in dodging the lamp that floated its way towards his head, but before something bigger than a lamp started to attack him from behind he defensively negated "Oh, come on, I was just telling the truth, and- wait, wait, wait…!" he frantically backtracked when the room began to turn ominously dark. "Okay, I take it back; you're not cute, not at all!"

Satisfied with the result he got, the proud ghost allowed a smug look to appear on his face. "Good. Don't you dare call me something unworthy of my status ever again, understood?"

Not wanting the peaceful moment to turn into the gateways to hell in a mere second, Naruto hesitantly complied with a bow. "Understood, your highness."

"…It's not your highness, it's Sasuke."

For the second time that day, Naruto was allowed a peek into the beautiful color mixture that put the old, familiar rainbow to shame. He grinned back with delight and chirpily responded.

"Sasuke it is, then!"

* * *

"You know, I don't really need a daily update on your life with your ghost." Gaara clarified, ignoring the girl that was fawning over him as she deposited his coffee in front of him.

"And," Naruto waited for the intruding waitress to finish staring her full at his captivatingly browless friend and then continued. "I'm not giving it. You asked how I was doing so I gave a brief summary."

"Telling me every second of every minute of every hour of every day for a _whole_ week isn't considered brief," he retorted, and when Naruto's lips started moving towards objection he caustically added "Besides, a simple 'I'm fine, he's fine' would have sufficed."

Naruto rolled his eyes at his friend and responded with "Well, not all of us like giving curt replies."

"What pisses me off is that you know this and yet you still pester me with long ones. Do you _want_ me to punch your face into a pulp that much?"

"I'd like to see you try; with that bony hook of yours, you'd be lucky if you could slam a fist on me without snapping it in two."

"Our previous game begs to differ."

"Our previous game doesn't count, since my mind was elsewhere and I wasn't concentrating."

"Concentrating or not, you lost, fair and square. Anyhow, I doubt you invited me here just to gloat about the successes you've had with your ghost… or is that actually the case?"

When Naruto's sheepish gaze met the redhead's one, Gaara glared at the other and started standing up. The blond quickly steadied him and plaintively explained.

"I really needed someone to tell! And Sakura-chan was busy!"

"Let go of me, Uzumaki. I can't believe I came all the way from my house for this shit. Let me go, or today would be the last you see of me!"

Naruto knew that the icy tone meant death with Gaara, so he let go of his redhead friend, but instead reverted to plan B- begging piteously for forgiveness.

"Oh please, Gaara! Oh great, powerful, first-class boxer Gaara-sama! I beg of thou to sit with me awhile longer! I've nothing to do and it's boring as hell at home! So please stay with me and I'll make it worth your while to hang out with me!"

"There are other people who are free; you can call anyone from the club and I'm sure they'd gladly accompany you into this worthless '_hanging-out' _game you're playing."

"Yeah, but nobody else knows about him and besides, you've been my friend since forever!"

To make his point across, the blond stretched his arms one-eight degrees, and dramatically explained just how much 'forever' meant to him. At this, Gaara snorted and returned to his seat.

"Seriously, I'm too good to you. I should stop spoiling you like this."

"No, you shouldn't. Sakura is doing that enough for the both of you and I need a friend I can hang with when I want to, so please don't turn into another Sakura."

"I won't. So, here I am… tell me whatever you want to tell me now. I've disregarded all the important things I should be doing today to listen to your useless blabber, so you better make it worth my while!"

"Hmm…where should I start then?"

"You were up to the part after your little fight, when he told you his name was Sasu–"

"Oh yeah, that's right! I just can't describe his cuteness! I mean, he'd give off this lovely red every time I call him 'Sasuke', and his name is becoming more like a way to tease him than for me to connect with him. I don't know what I'm feeling, but I just want to bully him more every time he shows his adorable blushes."

"You're a horrible adult."

"No, I'm not. No one told him to be that cute! It's his fault!"

"You're just like a pedophile who blames children for seducing him."

Two blond brows furrowed at that statement before a loud mouth complained "Ew, Gaara, that's just nasty. For one, I'm not a pedo, since he's approximately the right age for an adult, and for another, I don't swing that way – he's just like a little brother to me, or even a cat or a dog. That's all it is…"

"It's amazing how you can compare a mere dog or cat to an actual human being, and a brother at that."

"Well, they all make you feel special and they love you unconditionally as well, so they're basically the same."

"You just overlooked all the fundamental differences that distinguish humans and animals, and I'm perfectly sure every living human with siblings would be planning assassination attempts on you had they heard your words."

"Naah, they won't kill me, I'll just stand my ground. Besides, there's no reason for them to be pissed. Unconditional love is something wonderful, regardless of who or what it comes from."

"You're just saying that because you're an only child."

"And _you're_ saying that because you have siblings."

"I know what hatred for them feels like, which is why I refuse you saying that every siblings love each other unconditionally –"

"But you don't deny their connection to dogs and cats?"

The redhead nodded coolly and folded his hands over his chest. "Yes. Kankuro resembles a rabid dog, and Tamari's more like a vicious cat. The only difference is that animals can be put down for legal reasons, while humans… are a bit trickier to kill off."

"Gaara, I swear to God, you're just cruel! I'd never want to be an animal around you! And besides, your siblings are cool! I don't see why you hate them so much."

"They're as annoying as fuck, since they're always butting into my business with that _woman_."

Naruto's features took a soft turn to them at the other's bitter words. Gaara's stepmother, that '_woman_' the redhead had referred to, was the woman that'd gave birth to Tamari and Kankuro. She was also the one his father had left to marry his mother, and she had been the one he'd returned to when his mother passed away in her sleep. He knew that, in his friend's heart, he couldn't stop blaming his stepmother for his mother's death, and although it was proven that his mother died of purely natural causes, Gaara just couldn't forgive his father's treachery in remarrying that woman. Naruto thought that to be the reason why the redhead never warmed up to his elder siblings.

He sighed, not wanting to enter into a banal conversation with Gaara about the negative perspective he had of his family. Although he wanted his friend to correct his thoughts about his siblings and tell him to grow up some more, he wasn't up for the task at the moment. When his friend was a little more receptive to his words, he'd get it through his thick skull that his mother's death was no one's fault, and that his siblings were amazing and they loved him unconditionally, even if his feelings were anything but. Until then, though…

"By the way, how did he die?" His friend's soft tone brought the blond back from the depths of his thoughts and at this distraction, he blinked his eyes confusedly.

"How did who die?"

Gaara swallowed the sarcastic remark on the tip of his tongue and patiently answered "Your ghost."

Naruto frowned and crossed his arms thoughtfully. "Hmmm….that's a very good question that I've never asked before, and don't know the answer to."

"What, weren't you interested? He's only eighteen, isn't he? Don't the circumstances surrounding his death intrigue you?"

"Of _course _I'm interested, but that's not the problem here. You know, I have a million other questions for him… Like, say, what's life after death like? Is there a life after death? How did he turn into a ghost? Was it because he still had lingering regrets? Can I do something to help erase these regrets? Who were his parents? How did he live? _Why did he die_? I could go on forever, but the problem lies in him, and not me. Even now, after he told me his name, he continued to distance himself from me; it's almost like he drew a line on day one that neither of us can cross. That's pretty much the reason why I'm unable to ask him personal questions."

"I find this hard to believe, Naruto, because you know no boundaries. Your character is based on not knowing them; heck, I didn't even _know_ you knew them. So why are you starting now?"

The blond's blue eyes turned soft and Gaara raised an invisible eyebrow at this strange reaction. "He seems hurt, you know. Sometimes, there are times when I've found him sit-floating beside the window and looking off into the distance, and I'm sure he wasn't looking at the streets. He was looking back at his past, and every time he does his face always looks as if it's being crushed by pain, and when I see that… I just can't and won't do it. How could I be so cruel as to ask him to open his heart to me when he still harbors such pain?"

"Then you'll just have to continue living with a ghost whose story you don't know and a barrier that'll prevent you from ever knowing it. Well, you're an adult and you need to figure out these things yourself – at least, I think you should – so I won't judge you. As your friend, though, it worries me to see how bad your problems are getting."

"Yeah, thanks. Actually, even though he's closing his heart to me these days, it seems like he's come a bit closer to home, you know? So I guess I can savor the feeling of it."

"Well," Gaara took the jacket he had discarded about twenty six minutes ago when his friend forced him to stay with him, and said with a parting tone, "I think you should continue with your current tactic and make him feel closer to you then, if that's what you believe is right. Even though I may not agree with you, and a small part of me is firm in the belief that you've gone insane and I'm just wasting my time and breath giving advice to a crazy person, I'm choosing, for the most part, to believe in you. You've never lied to me before –except for those small white lies of yours– and if you say you're seeing a ghost, then you're definitely seeing a ghost. So… basically, what I wanted to say is: be careful. Even if you don't mean it, emotions can develop, and getting attached to a person who has already departed this world will only leave a bitter taste in your mouth. Seriously, listen to my advice, because I'd hate to see you broken like that other time."

Naruto gave the other an assuringly bright grin. "Don't worry; I learnt how to protect myself, so I'll never allow myself to go that far again."

"Hn. If you say so, then I'll trust you on this one. Later."

The blond didn't stop his boxer friend when he left, and didn't even bother to complain when he was forced to pay for the both of them. After all, his brain was still hooked on the last words the other had said…

_Don't get too attached_.

…And he hated how the little voice inside his head was evilly screaming that it was a little too late for that.

* * *

"She's returned, Naruto."

The blond blinked innocently at his best female friend and adjusted the new boxing gloves he'd gotten himself. "Who's back?"

"…Hinata. She arrived from New York two weeks ago."

Sakura noticed the little shiver that ran through Naruto's body and the way his blue eyes darkened; she noticed it all, and bit her lower lip in an unconscious display of guilt. She didn't want to be the one to tell him, to rip open his old wounds and pour salt on them by asking him to meet with his old love – or even see her face – but it was her responsibility, and she knew she couldn't just leave Naruto with an old wound tearing at his heart like that. She needed to remove the torture that forbade him from ever knowing or loving a new person, and eliminate the indefinite hiatus in his love life that kept him armoring his heart so he'd never be betrayed again.

"…H-Hinata?"

She nodded and reached for the instant coffee that he'd served her the minute she waltzed inside his apartment. Sakura made a mental note to compliment him on the nice aroma and the comforting atmosphere, as well as the lovely way his furniture was arranged in the house. She wanted to tell him now, but she'd leave it all for afterwards, when she was finished with the shocking news she came to deliver.

"Yes. You know, she wants to see you."

It took five whole minutes for Naruto's initial shock to fade from his face, and it took much longer for him to decipher her new words… or attempt to, in any case.

"Come again?"

The pink haired girl fought the urge to hightail it out of there and bitch to Hinata about doing her own dirty work, but for Naruto's sake, she valiantly fought the urge to do so. "I said, she wants to see you. Apparently, she's only here for one month, and she said she had some important things to say to you before she left again."

This time, she got a reaction out of him, and it wasn't a reaction she didn't see coming. Predictably enough, his brows furrowed at her words and he stood up, before he discarded his gloves and took a step back. "I… there's nothing between us; I have nothing to say to her anymore."

"Yeah… but still, she has something to say to you. Naruto, just give her a chance and let her meet up with you."

"I… I don't want to see her."

Sakura heaved a sigh and walked towards him. With a gentle touch of her hand, she jolted him from the memories that were surely plaguing him since the moment her lips released the old name of his former love, and his current source of heartache and pain. Hopefully, her touch had also momentarily expelled the nightmares she was sure he was still having in those dark nights where the rain ruled the heavens and loneliness gripped his heart.

"Naruto, I know what you're thinking about right now, but you have to see her and you should hear what she has to say for herself. You can't just shy away from the old pain and pretend that she didn't hurt you for the rest of your life."

Naruto proceeded to shake her hand off softly and make his way towards his room as he tried to deal with the heavy storm that had swept in with all its destructive force. "Sakura, I don't want to see her… and I trust you know your way out."

With a crushing sense of finality, the blond went inside his room and shut the door behind him. Sakura scowled at his behavior and sighed in reluctant acceptance. She knew that a rejection was forthcoming and that it wouldn't be easy to get Naruto to meet up with Hinata, but she really did think that there was a distinctly Hinata-shaped wound left unhealed in his heart and, until they dealt with the problem, that wound will never heal. Looking at the closed door, Sakura pulled a paper from her purse and wrote something on it, before she pinned it on the fridge's door near the schedule for the upcoming training session Naruto was supposed to be starting a week from now.

She gave one last look to the apartment she had picked for her best bud and walked out, oblivious to the way the paper she'd left floated ever so lightly to the hands of the transparent being standing elegantly by the door. There was no way that she could see the small, unsatisfied yet interested twinkle deep inside that pit of darkness Sasuke liked to call his eyes, and if she had, she might've been worried by the response the ghost had to her note.

"Hn…"

* * *

"Sasuke… can you please bring me the book over there?"

"I'm not your servant."

Naruto smiled gently at the nasty reply, but before he was able to refute the statement, the book he wanted floated magically into his arms, and his smile brightened into a thankful grin.

"Thank you."

"Hn."

"Sasuke, can I ask you something?"

"It's not like you'd stop if I said no."

"Yep, you're right, I'd probably ask anyway. So… hmm… I know this is out of the blue and all, but… umm… have you ever fallen in love before?" At the deathly quiet atmosphere, Naruto sat down on the bed and began to explain. "Well… I mean before you turned into a ghost and all… but it's okay if you don't want to answer–"

"I've had countless girlfriends, but I could never see why they squeaked in happiness and joy when they were with me, or why they said 'I love you' all the time. I don't know what it is, I have never been in love before, and I couldn't care less about it."

Naruto smiled at the honest reply, because it showed him that they were actually making progress in their weird and awkward friendship. Amongst the daily obnoxious words thrown his way and the familiar death threats, there were times when the truth was being given, and it was at these times that Naruto allowed his heart a minute to rejoice at the mile they have conquered together.

"Hmm…do you ever wish that you had learned what true love was before you died?"

As a minute went by and Naruto turned from the bag he was packing to spare him a glance, he was taken aback by the genuine interest and thought the floating teen was giving to him and his words.

"Honestly, no. I didn't give a shit about it then, and I don't give a shit about it now. It was enough for me to deal with the problems I had, and adding the fickle emotion of love to my life wasn't something I'd have wished for. Lust was enough for me."

"Lust, ha?"

"…Yes."

"How old were you when you died?"

"How old do I look to you right now?"

Naruto smiled and brought the bag he was preparing closer to him. He tucked the two black socks in his hand into the outer pocket of the bag, before he relaxed back onto the bed and supported his weight with his hands. After some thought, he guessed "Eighteen, seventeen, or maybe sixteen…give or take a year."

"Then we'll leave it at that."

Sasuke was floating closer to him as he spoke, and Naruto made sure to maintain the tranquil smile he had on his face. He didn't change his position when the air around him seemed to pick up speed and, for some unknown reason, it started glowing gold to match the colors dancing around the ethereal being. He didn't know if it was due to the gold he was inhaling or just by the black irises sending him into a catatonic and trouble-free state, but no matter what it was, the unease in his heart drained away, only to leave him feeling unusually calm and peaceful.

Without meaning to, his mouth allowed another question to slip out. "The lingering emotions you have… they're not caused by a girl, are they?"

The question proved to be a fatal one, because the calmness surrounding him abruptly snapped back to the status quo, and Naruto felt that the answer to that question of his rang loud and clear in the ensuing awkwardness. With downcast eyes now facing the ground, he continued talking as once again, the words flowed out of him like a waterfall.

"I, too, have lingering emotions because of a girl. She was my first love –wait, that's not quite right, since Sakura was my first love – so instead of being my first love, I'd have to say that she was my first _true_love. I adored everything about her, and I didn't even mind dying for her, so I guess she was my whole world and my whole life. The time we spent together, both in high school and our first year of college, were the best years of my life…"

Sasuke floated in silence, waiting for the 'but' that would shatter all the good things the blond had just mentioned, but it never came out, and he was gracious enough to allow Naruto to keep the part after the 'but' to himself. Just being told, and trusted with, that amount of information was enough to him, and Sasuke halted the self-torture mechanism he was accustomed to at that thought to another time.

He stretched his hand to deliver a soft gesture that the little ray of humanity inside of him told him he should do, but as his index finger went right through the blond lock he was aiming for, Sasuke quickly withdrew his hand away. As his senses returned and relief flooded him from seeing that he was fast enough to forbid the human from sensing any change in his surroundings, he decided to change his tactics, and tried another approach.

"I recorded the game you wanted to see the other day…" He flickered one of his fingers and a CD came floating to Naruto's fingertips. "It's in this CD. You said it was important to learn the moves your opponent was making and I think you'll be able to do so with this."

When startled, azure orbs faced him, the teenager ghost turned his face and began floating away. He refused to be acknowledged as the one who'd done something nice for his human invader and was all too ready to make his escape, when he was prevented from doing so.

"Wait, Sasuke!"

His name. It was like a shackle he'd wrapped around his ankle, and he was the one stupid enough to give the key of it to Naruto. Unable to move until the other deigned to release him with his words, Sasuke spared a look behind him and grumbled.

"What?"

"…Thank you, Sasuke"

"I didn't really do it for you, but I figured if you lost, you'd drink, and then I'll have to clean your mess… I never want a repetition of the last accident you made in the bathroom _again_."

Naruto wanted to correct the other and say that he didn't drink because he'd lost, but rather because he'd won. However, for some reason, he knew if he clarified the situation, the nice gesture that had been done for him would be taken back and would probably never be repeated again, so he smiled and continued with his thanks.

"I promise I won't lose, so you won't have to take care of me that way again."

"You better remember those words and value them, because I hate liars."

"I never lie."

"Good."

With that, Naruto watched his invisible roommate wander out of his room and away from his sight. Feeling buoyed up by the other's gestures, he continued packing his stuff for his week-long match away from home. Ignoring the wound inside his heart that reminded him of his cowardice in running away that hinted at just how much of a chicken he was being right now, Naruto continued packing with great zeal.

Zipping his bag up, the blond resigned himself to his fate as a coward, and sharply noted to his heart that there was nothing wrong with being a chicken and running away from reality. There was nothing wrong at all…

* * *

"Why is it so fricking cold in here?! I'm freezing!" exclaimed one disoriented brunet boxer. Pulling the huge furry hat on his head tighter and further squashing the disheveled locks peeking out, he tried not to have one of his bones shatter from the cold atmosphere.

Naruto patted him softly with his hand and pulled the jacket closer to his body to warm up more. "Relax, Kiba, it's really not that cold."

The brown haired boxer named Kiba snorted at his old teammate, before he ran to the fireplace when his eyes laid on it. "I can't see why you look so familiar with the cold – you don't even look like a person growing up in the heated areas of Konoha anymore – so spill it. Seriously, man, what's your secret?"

Naruto sweat-dropped at the question and struggled to come up with a plausible answer. Since telling him that he'd been living with a moody ghost for about two whole months – which meant that changes in mood were reciprocated with changes in atmosphere – was clearly out of the question, he sufficed with a simple.

"I have warm blood. It acts as a thermostat for my body temperature, so I don't get affected by the cold as easily."

Kiba gave the blond a hard look and angrily barked. "That's just one huge load of crap!"

Naruto threw one glove at the male who was close to hugging the fireplace and retorted: "Shut it, dog-breath."

"Beats being a ramen-banged-fag like you."

"Goodness, Kiba, that's just nasty! Can't you be a bit more sophisticated and a little less vulgar this early in the morning?" Their respectful captain broke in, showing his form and stretching before the two bickering males.

Naruto smiled cheerfully and bowed in respect. "Good morning, Shika-chan. How was your nap?"

"Stop calling me Shika-chan, it's _Shikamaru _for goodness' sake, and my repose was fine, as usual. Anyway, why is it this cold? Is the heater broken or something?"

"Hmm… yeah something like that. Someone was sleep-practicing in the middle of the night and punched the master circuit, so he broke the heater. Now we're stuck with this old-assed fireplace, which is barely providing enough heat to reach _this_ far –" to emphasize his point, Kiba moved about twenty centimeters away from the hearth and spat out "As you can see, this is fucking pathetic!"

"Don't tell me, Gaara again?"

"Who else but that fucker does that every time we have to go room in a foreign place that's not his fucking home?!" Kiba released his cold-fuelled frustration out loud.

"Now, now, Kiba; it's not like he's doing it on purpose." Naruto started, defending his long-time friend. "It's something like an illness to him, and he's working on solving it."

"Well, he's not freaking working fast enough! Last time he smashed a door, the time before he dented a fricking sofa, and the time before _that_ he crashed the glassware cabinet! We were forced to pay the damn price for all of them each and every time, and this time around we'll probably be held responsible for the heater! Tell me, Naruto, do you even have the money on you to pay for this?!"

The blond shook his head forlornly and sighed. "…I get your point, but still, he's not doing it because he likes to, and as his teammates and friends all we can do is deal with it and help in controlling him during the night."

Shikamaru inserted himself into the conversation before Kiba went berserk on Naruto; the prospect of explaining why his team lacked boxers and also why his boxers suddenly developed murderous intentions towards each other was not an appealing one. "Naruto, you know that that won't work; remember the last time we decided to hold Gaara down? He broke through easily and soundly pounded your and Kiba's asses, and none of us want a repeat of that disastrous episode."

"Then what do you suggest we do, Shika-chan?"

Choosing to ignore the nickname, the lazy captain answered. "This is just too troublesome, but for now… we'll have him apologize for the broken heater, and pay the owner from his own pocket. So tell me, did he break anything other than that?"

Naruto shook his head. "Not that I know of; it was just the heater."

"Good, he can pay for it now, and then we'll deal with his sleeping-disorder another time. Right now we need to focus on the match this evening… by the way, where's Gaara?"

As if on cue, the redhead walked in from the front door and locked it behind him. He continued on his way inside and blinked at the glare that was given to him from his fellow boxers and their respectful yet sluggish captain, before he asked in a hostile tone:

"What?"

"Don't 'what' me, you fucking asshole!"

Naruto had to hold down Kiba to prevent him from jumping on one of their ace punchers – with them having a match in a few hours; it would be detrimental if they injured each other. "Calm down, Kiba. As for you, Gaara, can you stop punching stuff every fricking night we're forced to sleep out?!"

The redhead continued towards his assigned room and ignored the growls behind him to fucking die in a ditch somewhere, before he gave a curt reply. "I've paid for what I broke and apologized beforehand to the landlord, so as I see it there really isn't anything I should be feeling guilty for – or be cursed about, for that matter."

Naruto maintained a deathly grip on Kiba because he knew that if he didn't, not only would Gaara's body be found in a dump somewhere but Kiba's would be too, since Gaara would drag the other to hell with him. With just two boxers, their chances of winning would be close to none, and the blond was not a keen loser by any means.

Finally, the brunet calmed down enough to yank his hand free from Naruto's grip and walk over to his own room, having had enough of the heat for now. Naruto sighed and absentmindedly blurted.

"Sasuke… water, please."

When there was no water floating to him and no one retorting snidely to his command, the blond blinked and remembered that he was far away from his house and the silent company he was used to. He was just about to fulfill his own request when he was stopped in his tracks.

"Sasuke?"

Startled by the lazy male behind him, he plastered a cheesy smile onto his face and fought down the urge to gulp at his mistake, before he turned around. Rubbing the back of his head, he gave a lousy answer in the form of. "Oh... sorry, I forgot I was away from home for a minute."

"Hmm… it's not that I don't understand –I do it all the time when I'm alone and I call out to my cat, thinking I'm still at home when I'm away– but this is the first time you've done this… who is this Sasuke? Your roommate or something?"

Naruto blinked before answering the questions. "Something like that… but Shika-chan, I didn't know you had a cat!"

Shikamaru nodded and, finding himself a cozy spot near the fireplace to warm his tingling body, he mused aloud. "It was my cousin's, but when she moved away it became attached to me. I tried throwing it away many times, but somehow it always found its way back to me, so I just let it be."

"Well, what's his or her name?"

"Teru's a male… but somehow, I just can't refer to him as anything but 'it'."

"Maybe you're just used to seeing him as an 'it'."

"Perhaps… anyhow, who's this 'Sasuke' you were talking to earlier?"

"Er… He's… umm… I'd have to give a very complicated explanation, but to make things simple I'd describe him as someone akin to an apartment companion…"

"A roommate?"

"Something like that."

"You seem close to him."

At this, Naruto blinked in mild shock. "What makes you say that?"

"The fact that you felt it was normal to ask him for water and expect him to bring it to you –it shows that you're comfortable around, and thus close to, this Sasuke individual."

Naruto's mouth turned into a smile; it was the second time someone had told him he appeared close to Sasuke and, at some level, he felt that to be praise that he could take pride in. Of course, no one besides him was able to see the ghost, and that alone made him feel privileged. Maybe he was being selfish and cruel by thinking this way, but having such an understanding, cute, cool and – to some degree – handsome person… er, ghost… to return home to didn't really feel all that bad.

However, an image of a long-haired girl with bright lavender eyes popped up at the thought of something to return home to, and his heart began aching. With a great deal of effort, he shook himself from his thoughts and hurriedly stuttered.

"S-Shika-chan, I'm going out for a long stroll; if something comes up, you can reach me on my cell, alright?"

"I don't really mind, but make sure you keep yourself safe and _stay nearby_, okay? It's a foreign land, and a snowy one on top of that, so don't do anything that would endanger yourself. Be sure to get back in time for our evening match, as well."

"Alright! I'll be back soon."

Naruto put on his sports shoes and exited the door, leaving his captain alone in the room. Shikamaru quickly fixed himself some oolong tea and brought a chair to the fireplace, before he began sipping the hot beverage with ease. As he drank, he thought up strategies that would enable each member of his team to be able to make use of their natural abilities and win the matches assigned to them.

After a while of deep thinking, he rubbed the back of his head and muttered "…Ah, this is too fricking troublesome."

* * *

Sakura unlocked the apartment with the spare key Naruto had left for her and peeked inside. It had been three days since the blond had informed her to check up on his apartment – he'd be gone for a week, he said, and he was afraid it would get dusty by the time he returned – so he entrusted it to her. As she walked inside, though, she couldn't stop her eyes from blinking in amazement.

The apartment was sparkling clean.

The question of who had cleaned the fresh-smelling apartment to that extent meandered through her head as she closed the door behind her and continued inside. There was no dirt on the tables, chairs or any other neatly-arranged items of furniture and the floor was highly polished, as if someone had just wiped it clean with timber flooring wax. Surely, Naruto would've left the apartment in a mess –that what she's assumed at the beginning, in any case– and even if he'd cleaned it, it wouldn't have stayed that way after three whole days.

"Even if everything was shut tight, some dirt should've been carried in by the wind and gone through the small slits in the windows." She reasoned with herself.

Then the words of Naruto about the _invisible _roommate who was living with him had her blinking yet again, this time in disbelief. "It's not possible, Sakura, pull yourself together. Surely there's a perfectly scientific explanation for all of this. You're not childish enough to believe in unrealistic things such as ghosts, like that baka Naruto."

Despite her disbelieving words, a part of her was still unnerved; as soon as she'd finished talking, the apartment abruptly dropped in temperature. Sakura frowned at herself, trying to recall if the atmosphere was really all that cold to begin with or had it just gotten colder but, having no one to second her, she chose to trust her own facts and she reinvigorated herself with a stern:

"Sakura, stop being foolish, ghosts don't exist."

She reminded herself again and, with firm steps, she dispelled her doubts and walked over the phone to call her blond friend, so she could find out exactly what was going on. She was sure he was pulling some type of trick on her – a trick to make her believe in his words and in the invisible roommate he'd magically attained – and she wasn't dumb enough to fall for something like that.

Getting to the phone, and dialing the number Naruto gave her for emergencies, Sakura waited until the line was hooked. "_Hello, Iwaki's residence? I'd like to speak with Uzumaki Naruto, please. He's staying in room twenty seven…yes, the boxing team. Hmmm…okay, I'll hold." _After about five minutes, the cheerful voice of her blond friend resonated over the phone. "_Baka-ruto! What kind of stupid joke are you playing with me here?!... What do you mean 'what stupid joke?'! This stupid joke that I want to smash your head in for! You told me to come clean your house, and when I do it's squeaky clean! There's no shit to clean here, literally! …look, did you hire someone to come clean your house before I came, just to prank me or something? Because, Uzumaki, I hate being played around with, and if this is your idea of fun then you're so going to die...!_" Sakura listened patiently to the laughter from the other side and again, when the stupid old crap about his imaginary roommate came to her ears, she hissed back. "_I told you to stop with this absurd belief already, Naruto! There's no such thing as ghosts, they don't exist! And when did you get the money to buy and install an AC? It's fucking freezing in here…!_"

The next words that followed went unheard as Sakura swiftly release her hold on the phone upon feeling something tap her shoulder from behind. When she'd slowly turned around, she came face to face with transparent skin, dark soulless eyes, and sparkling golden-blue particles shimmering in a thick haze around that transparent skin. Just as she was about to do something, _anything_, to break the illusion, the thing opposite her maliciously smirked and said.

"Boo."

And that was the last thing Haruno Sakura heard and saw right before she thudded loudly to the ground and passed into the unconscious world of oblivion.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at the echoes vibrating from the phone and picked up the line. He felt his body give off a strange emotion as the voice of the human imprisoning him resonated in his ears, and struggled to contain it in. Biting his deadly cold lips, he answered with delicate ease:

"_Stop shouting already; your little scaredy-cat of a friend is fast asleep… all I did was teach her a little lesson, much like I did with your redhead friend. She was waltzing around saying shit like 'ghost don't exist, I don't believe in ghosts', and all I did was expand her narrow horizon a bit." _As he said this, he allowed satisfaction to creep into his voice, and he waited for it to be acknowledged by the faraway male before he continued. "_Well… it depends, if she's as interesting as you, I'd let her go, but if she's not, then I'll devour her just like I did with the previous ones… the contract with you? Well, you're forgetting something very important. That was a contract with __**you**__. It doesn't involve anyone else but you. I can't harm you, but your fucking contract doesn't cover her. I warned you about your trespassing friends beforehand, so I have the absolute freedom to do with her as I wish…!_"

Sasuke continued his little bickering with Naruto over the line, and swirling his index finger, he directed Sakura's limp body towards one of the free rooms on the immense apartment. He allowed her to rest on the bed, rather than the floor he'd taken precious time to polish this early in the morning; after all, he didn't waste all that time just to have her stinking body with that awful perfume dirty it mere moments later.

"_Hmm… A game? That sounds interesting. What type of games?... Hn. And what makes you think I'd agree to release her if you got here in an hour's time?...well, saying it's close to impossible for you doesn't really mean anything to me...how about we raise the bar a little then? If you reach here within an hour, and agree to meet with this Hinata person you seem to loath so much, then I'll think about releasing her…_"

The raven snickered in the line as he awaited the other's answer. The courage the other was showing when he tried to prop him with a time-game backfired on him, now that he'd been requested something that was beyond his mental capability. If what he'd read from their last conversation – when Naruto was getting ready to depart – was anything to go by, this love he was inquiring about was related to the phone number on the paper he'd confiscated from the girl who wrote it. There was also a high chance that the name that he'd heard when his hostage, the Sakura person, came forcing his human warden to go and meet the _Hinata_ person was also related to this incident.

And apparently, that was something that brought him pain.

Sasuke's smirk widened at this single terrible thought. _Pain_. That was what he wanted the other to feel right now. Pain hard enough to make him wish for death; pain and despair mixed with the utter feeling of loss. And then…and then… he'd finally be able to understand what it was like to be completely void.

Finally, there was an answer on the line floating close to his ears, and with a malevolent smile that turned the whole of the apartment icy cold, the ghost mock-solemnly announced: "_Very well. I'll be waiting for you, Uzumaki Naruto. Your time… starts now."_

* * *

**The first cliffhanger in the story, guys~ I hope you had fun with this chapter. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think with a review and 'til the next chapter, everyone :D. **


	3. Chapter Three

**Author's Notes:  
Hello, everyone. I appreciate your support for the past two chapters and I hope I still have it. Sorry for the long delay into posting this one, my Beta and I had some technicalities, but all is well now ~(^_^)~ Thank you Fyrshi-chama for the wonderful edits~ I'm so glad we're working together. And everyone, again sorry for the long wait, but here it is, the third chapter, enjoy~ :3**

_**P.S:**_** You'll find the word 'sire*' in the context, no, I don't mean it as one's own descendants or to a mean for a servant to address his master, here I mean it like the 'sire bond' in Vampire Diaries, I'm pretty sure most of you out there are familiar with the show, but if you're not, then what a sire bond is a link between a vampire and his hexed one, a vampire can ask whatever of the sired one and that shall be done by him. So anyway, sorry if this was confusing but if you find a hard time with this, just think of it as being 'cursed', that should make it simple. Thanks and enjoy~**

* * *

"Release her, Sasuke! I'm here!"

Naruto sprung open the door to his apartment and, in a fit of nervousness, he marched inside. The first thing that met his confused gaze and caused his brows to wrinkle together in added consternation was the nice aroma of coffee that overwhelmed the olfactory senses in his brain, and with increasing puzzlement, he blinked and continued further inside. However, his nervous expressions and his pounding heart subsided at the view of his best friend, sitting elegantly on his grey armchair and watching soap operas with a cup of coffee firmly clutched in her hand. Blinking once again, this time in growing relief, his head tilted to the side in wonder as he stared at her.

"Sakura?"

The pink haired female turned away from the screen and grinned upon seeing her friend stroll into the living room. "Naruto! What brings you here?"

Still confused by the fact that she was well and kicking, he attempted to make certain she wasn't pretending, or being threatened to fake her state of wellbeing, by asking: "Sakura, you're alright?"

"A very odd question to ask before greeting someone, don't you think?"

"Umm…y-yeah, I guess, but are you okay?"

Sakura muted the volume of the television and silenced the foreigners who were intruding on her conversation. Racking her brains for a solution to the set of problems at hand, she answered with a bored tone. "Should there be a reason why I wouldn't be?"

"…Hmm…I guess not."

"Then why ask a stupid question when there's no reason for it?"

Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly as he made his way closer to her. "Y-yeah, I would want to know the answer to that question myself."

"Seriously, Naruto, you really should get help, because you're getting crazier by the minute." She sighed, before she added in a suspicious tone. "Besides that, why are you here? Shouldn't you be in a ring somewhere boxing someone to death?"

Still trying to pinpoint what was wrong, Naruto countered her with a question of his own. "You don't remember talking to me? Just an hour ago… you were talking to me on the phone, saying something about me pranking you and then…"

"And then?"

When he saw that his words clearly fell on deaf ears and that this girl before him held no memory of their previous phone call, the blond shook his head and gave her a smile. "Never mind… but are you sure you're fine though?"

"Okay, I'm starting to get suspicious here. Seriously, what's wrong Naruto?"

"Nothing, nothing… I was just making sure you're fine. You know how you've been complaining that all the work is being thrown on your shoulders and that no one was helping you for these past few weeks? I was just trying to see if you still felt that way, that's all."

Sakura frowned, not buying his words at all. Still ignoring the uneasy feeling inside of her, she nodded regardless. "Well, I'd already gotten help from Ino, so I'm fine – and if you still have doubts about it then don't, because I'm as healthy as a horse. Yet, this doesn't explain why you're acting so weird; I mean, you've always been an odd cookie, but tonight you're being stranger than usual. Did someone manage to punch the only functioning part of your brain or something?"

Naruto rolled his eyes and went back to the still-open apartment door and clicked it closed, mentally blaming its formerly ajar state on his hastiness earlier. He returned to his living room in time to see Sakura bring the cup of coffee back to the sink and pick up her purse and cell phone.

"Where are you going?"

"I've some business to tend to. You _do_ know I postponed my work to come here early and clean everything for you, right? Anyhow, since you're back, I have to leave now. Actually, if I'd known you were going to return tonight, I wouldn't have bothered, but… " She shrugged and added, "it doesn't matter anyway. Well, I need to run now; if I hurry I might still be able to make it…"

"Wait, you cleaned?"

With a snort at his question, Sakura smacked him half-harshly on the back as she passed him to the door. "Just because I don't fancy it, doesn't mean I won't do it when it's needed."

"Well, I wasn't really being sarcastic … but never mind, have a safe trip."

"Will do."

Naruto escorted his friend to the door and accepted the goodbye kiss on the cheek she gave him. With a smile that, hopefully, gave her the assurance that he was alright and that his lines of questioning were just his usual oddness, he bid her goodnight. As soon as she was gone, though, he spun around and angrily shouted:

"SA-SU-KE! What the fuck did you do to her?!"

In an instant, evil laughter filled the entirety of the spacious flat, but Naruto refused to allow the incendiary chuckles to lead him astray. The source of his distress and the reason for his sudden bailing of his teammate in the midst of snow blizzards floated in with a smug face and a daring smirk, before his deviously shining eyes locked onto his angry ones.

"I see you didn't like my little surprise."

"What did you do to her?"

He acted assertive and curt in an attempt to show the teen that he wasn't in the same twisted boat as the other when it came down to a game involving the pain or manipulation of one of his friends. Instead of laughing and having the time of his life, he was determined to show the other that this was a red line he shouldn't be attempting to cross. However, judging from the way he was being smirked down upon, that little fact went right under the beautiful ghost's radar.

"I did what I saw fit… and by the way, you still need to hold up your end of the deal for me to release my hold on her."

Naruto clenched his hands and glared harshly up at the specter. "Why are you doing this? She has nothing to do with us! You can't just drag an innocent person into this for your precious revenge!"

"Oh, but I can and I did. There's a little thing you're also missing here, _oh true friend_; what I'm doing right now isn't revenge and it's not even close. I'm merely having a little fun here and, as I stated earlier on the phone, I'm just teaching your little, ignorant friend a lesson about ethereal respect. If I planned on taking revenge on you, you wouldn't even be standing here unhurt, let alone be chatting with me, so for your own good don't mix those two concepts up again."

"This is a very bad way to have fun, you know."

"The only person you can blame is yourself. After all, who told you to go to a faraway place and ask your oblivious friend to tend to _my _flat? It's _my _home, so I don't need some random woman to sniff her way inside; basically, all you can do here is blame yourself, examine your faults and wallow in guilt. Everything that will happen to her from now on depends on you alone – I'll be the puppeteer having fun in the shadows, and you're the hero who should free the princess before she goes and dies – so good luck in trying to get her out of my hex."

Having said what he wished to say, the ghost began to disappear, but Naruto wouldn't stand for that. So, disregarding the possibility of death and using the only weapon he had right now, he forbade the other from moving completely.

"Sasuke, stop!"

The ghost scowled at his own pathetic body; he knew he shouldn't have allowed this mere human to hold him under such a great power, but in the heat of a silly moment he'd blurted out his most prized possession. If he could go back to that time, he would've damned what little human emotion he still had and withheld his name, but it was too late for that. In any case, by the looks of things, the idiotic blond had finally figured out how to exploit his sole weakness.

"What?"

"What do you mean, your hex?"

"…I'm not obligated to answer."

"Well, then I won't allow you to leave until you at least tell me that much!"

Knowing that Naruto would go through with that silly threat and thinking that he didn't want to spend the rest of his night staring at the pile of stupidity in front of him; Sasuke answered his question with a bored tone. "When I say she's hexed by me, it means that she's sired* to me. Whatever I want her to do, she does. If I say move, she moves; if I say jump, she jumps; oh, and if I say die…" He took a moment to smile wickedly and enjoy the horrified look sliding into Naruto's eyes before he malevolently hissed. "She dies."

Trying to look at things from Sasuke's perspective, and ignoring the way his muscles tensed up at the mentioning of death and Sakura in one sentence, Naruto reasoned in an understanding –and hopefully grownup- way. "That's how you got her to overlook what had happened. You simply told her to forget…"

"…Not quite. All I told her was to rewrite her memories, which she did. See, if I simply forced her to forget, I'd have to speak another order for her to fill in the obvious gaps her memory would have, and I didn't wish to utter more words to that stinking woman. So overwriting ensured that her own gaps were filled with something that didn't occur but still felt close to the truth to her."

"But… Sakura's fine, right? She's alright and healthy… right?"

"Her current state of wellbeing depends on you. Right now, she's inside her car, driving to wherever she wants to go to, but I could simply just suggest –not even order her, mind you – to increase her speed and pay no attention to the cars coming in the opposite direction, and…"

Naruto's eyes widened at the scene that played inside his head and he began panicking. "No, wait, don't do it! I already said I'll go meet up with Hinata, so don't do anything that would endanger Sakura's life or put her in harm's way!"

As Sasuke's smirk slowly turned passive, he floated gracefully towards Naruto and brought his face extremely close to the blond's, before he spat out in an annoyed tone: "You're going through a hell of a lot for that friend of yours; you're even withstanding my twisted idea of fun and preparing to have your heart scarred anew. It really makes one wonder if she's really just a normal friend to you."

When pure, strong-willed eyes turned towards him, Sasuke was bowled over by the other's fierce determination. Cowed by the other's silent display, he slowly moved backward, allowing the blond his initially-private and highly personal bubble for the time being.

"Sakura's my best friend and she's been there for me through thick and thin. If it's my turn to be there for her then I'd do anything for her, even be manipulated by you or getting my wounds reopened; it doesn't matter to me, because her life is worth more – and more than that – to me."

"Hn. Maybe I shouldn't have made that deal in the first place… Maybe I should just kill her and have you experience true loss. It would be more fun since I'd finally know how much she me–"

"It's not just her," Naruto interrupted before another evil idea formed in the devious, scheming whorls his ghost referred to as his brain. "I'd go to that length for any of my friends!"

"Then I'll curse all of your worthless friends and lead them to their death, how about that? It's not that hard actually – if a sired one touches a normal human, I'd be able to connect with the human, hence the unfortunate human would also be under my hex. I can make her touch all of your precious friends and then have them commit mass suicide together. Now, doesn't that sound just grand?"

Even with the hideous picture he was painting with his words, the blond's eyes refused to waver or cease in their pure tinge, which caused Sasuke to experience a sudden feeling of defeat.

"Even then, I'd still have someone who you won't be able to touch."

This got the attention of the floating teen and, in an unconscious gesture of confusion, he quirked an imperceptible brow up. Who could he not touch with that ethereal power of his? Obviously it could be no one, since the idiot was only bluffing by using that silly move as a last resort. If he thought that he could have him accommodate yet another feeling of loss then he was wrong, because that would never happen – in this 'lifetime', at least. So, with that belief in mind, Sasuke continued trying to break Naruto.

"You insolent human, you _still_ have no clue about what I can and cannot do. Just because I've been playing house with you for a while, you think you have the whole of me figured out? Well, you'd better think again. I'm far too complicated for that insignificant brain of yours to try and crack, and this incident should remind you of who you are, who I am and where you stand in the grand scheme of things."

"I don't proclaim that I've had you figured out, but I do know that you're not as bad as you try to make yourself appear right now. You have a foul mouth and yet you're polite and have some sort of respect for manners, and you hate loud noises and appreciate quietness. You also dislike it when anyone insults you – or ghosts in general – and deny your existence, and that's why you're currently angry at Sakura. I admit, I deserve the treatment you're giving me – after all, it's my fault she came here, my fault that she'd insulted you in your own home, and it's my fault I didn't listen the first time you tried to warn me – so you can do whatever you want to do with me. All that I ask of you is that you don't let her shoulder a stupid fault that's only mine to take."

"Begging, are we?" The icy void of Sasuke's eyes faced Naruto, before he continued harshly. "Ah, but that won't do you any good; besides, that pitiful explanation you've concocted is far from the truth. I resent both her and you – her petty behavior has nothing to do with it – and, simply put, I'm punishing her for trespassing and you for allowing her to trespass, especially when you know perfectly well that I won't appreciate that at all. Now, you should just recognize the difference in power between us and be broken down by me this instant!"

Naruto couldn't stop himself from releasing a sound laugh at this, and when he diagnosed the confusion that the ghost felt from the sudden change of emotions, he explained the reason behind his amusement. "Sorry, but it's just… you're trying to break me by doing all of this, right? It's a bit funny because, you see… I'm already broken. Your job is already cut out for you, so you don't even need to bother about it. I've been broken for a while now, and I assure you, killing all of my friends will only act as the trigger to kill myself with them, so you won't achieve anything and you'd have just killed people in vain. I won't suffer more by it, since the minute you kill off Sakura, I'll be following her into the afterlife. Of course, if you remember what I said the first time we met, you'll remember that I'll turn into a ghost and haunt you, and thereby make your afterlife filled with nothing but disaster."

"Heh, should we test that one out then? I have nothing to lose, while you seem to have a lot…"

"If you're alright with having me nag at your back for all eternity, feel free to finish her off." Naruto challenged with eyes filled with intensity and courage… as well as a smidgen of fear.

"For someone who sounds so brave, your hands seem to be shaking quite briskly."

"Well, it's only natural since I'm scared as hell! I don't want to die just yet, and I don't want Sakura to die, too. Seriously, why do you think I rushed back here in an hour to achieve the impossible? It's because I didn't want anyone to die, and…"

"And you didn't want to hold the responsibility of guilt, correct?"

The blond shook his head, before continuing. "No, I didn't want _you _to hold the responsibility of guilt. I don't want the blood of other people to stain your hands, and even though I know I'm selfishly thinking that I can actually make a difference, I sure as hell want to try."

Once again, Sasuke was taken aback by the other's fervent purity. He didn't know why the tips of his fingers began itching, or why a faraway image started playing at the back of his mind, but it was highly uncomfortable for him. The woman in his ghostly mind was smiling happily while holding a bouquet of flowers with a card holding his name, and though he didn't know why the purity Naruto was emitting right now drove that exact memory into being, it somehow did. His mind began to throb sharply in pain, because the emotions from that image were just too vivid, too close, too overwhelming and were just too…

Too caring.

When was the last time someone genuinely cared for him? Never. It never happened, because it just wasn't possible, and no one ever felt for the dead guy, the forgotten one, the _ghost_. No one ever gave the loser a second thought, and he'd sworn to never be the loser ever again. The world was the same cruel place he closed his bloody eyes to that fateful night, and Sasuke knew that the guy before him was just spouting gilded words to affect him to the point that he'd release his hold on the girl that meant the world to him. It wasn't because he was caring for him, it was because he was looking after himself and his own interests; after all, nothing really matter other than one's own self in this dreadfully selfish world… and really, why would this human be any different?

At the sudden change in the room's atmosphere, Naruto's senses sharpened as he adjusted to the darkness.

"You know," A gloomy tone started off, catching the blond boxer by surprise. "I salute you; you almost had me there for a second, saying shit about how all of this was actually for me. A perfect strategy, I must say – it was clever of you to think of turning the tables on me. But sadly for you, I've dealt with better players and the game you just played is an old and oft-used one that I don't ever fall for anymore."

"What are you saying? Attempt? Strategy?" Naruto shook his head in denial at all of these accusations. "I really meant what I said! Even now, when I told you there would be a person whom you will never be able to touch or harm, I'd meant that, and the person is you! I'll also go the extra mile for you because you're my friend, my partner and my roommate! We've been living together for two months now! Do you really think I was just cooking up strategies every day to defeat you?! And why the hell would I _want_ to defeat you? You're not my enemy! If there had ever been a goal I had hoped for or worked towards, it would've been that you'd open up your heart to me one day and share with me, to tell me why you always look so hurt and tired. It would've never been to defeat you, because that's… that's just too sad, Sasuke."

At these words, Sasuke felt his hand fade from the golden-blue hue he'd always emitted and his eyes widen when it was replaced with crimson red. He shook it quickly in an attempt to remove it, and showed his back to the blond as he dealt with the situation at hand. This was dangerous; those emotions being thrown at him by the other were true and too much for him to handle! It was his first time dealing with something like this, and he had no idea how to react. His body was leading him astray and surrendering all too willingly to the other's sugar-coated words, and the way that it was melding into the new colors Naruto was forcing him show… this was not good.

Before Naruto could ask what had happened or why the dark aura has faded into warmness, the raven uttered some words and vanished, leaving Naruto to fill in the blanks for himself.

"Our initial deal still stands. Face that Hinata girl… or Pinkie dies."

* * *

Naruto held the phone an arm's length away from his sensitive eardrums and sighed. Bracing himself once more, he scoffed at the continuous noise coming from the other end of the line and only returned it to his ear when the noise subsided to a normal tone. With a calm tone, he attempted to reason with his furious teammate.

"_Kiba, I'm sorry, but it's impossible to return right now… I know I'm letting you guys down but there's something really important for me to do here and seriously, I can't just ignore it and rush back… Sorry… Um, c-can you tell the Shika-chan for me? Kiba…"_

The blond exhaled when his words were obviously ignored by Kiba's loud shouts over the phone. He was tempted to violently hang up on the domineering male and ignore the fact that he needed to explain himself before the team he was ditching when the shouts stopped and Kiba's sharply irritating tone was replaced by a quieter and slightly huskier one. A smile soon brightened his features when Gaara's faint '_what's wrong_?' echoed over the phone.

"_Gaara! Thank God! Look_, _nothing's wrong; I just need to take care of a little problem here… no, you don't need to worry about it. Just tell Shika-chan that I'm sorry and that I probably won't be able to attend today or tomorrow's matches. Hmm… I told you, I'm fine. You know if it's serious I'd have already asked for your help… nope, I'm not disclosing anything about my situation, Gaara, so would you stop being a worrywart? Seriously, I'm alright! I just have a business to care for –yes, yes, it's very important business… okay, thanks, I'll see you later… and you better win those matches for me!"_

With that, he returned the phone to its rightful place and slumped over his couch. He was sleepy and his body was crying out for rest, but he couldn't sleep just yet. He had a task at hand that he needed to accomplish and until he did, he couldn't get any shuteye. Inching his tired body off the sofa, Naruto lethargically made his way towards the bathroom because; simply put… he needed to shower. Take a soothing shower and for a second, ignore –because he wasn't given the privilege to forget– his overwhelming responsibilities.

Last night… man, that'd been one hell of a night! He hadn't slept a single minute; all he did was stay up thinking, turning and tossing in the confines of his bed. His heart was in chaos and his brain was just worried _sick_ about Sakura, and even though a part of him knew that Sasuke wouldn't break the promise he'd made with him, another part of him wasn't so sure about that. The lonely, dark look that was given to him the last time their eyes met told him that he really knew nothing about the other, and whatever he thought he'd cracked wasn't really cracked at all. Sasuke was still inside his protective shell and Naruto could only pretend to see the outside of it… that is, if he saw it at all.

He discarded his clothes and adjusted the water to the right temperature. Sitting on the side of the porcelain tub, he pulled out a brush and started rubbing his aching muscles with the lathered-up item. All he took was a quick shower, before he plugged the tub and waited for the warm water to fill it up. As he played silently with the bright yellow pack of ducks that Sakura had purchased as a gift for him, Naruto felt his mouth quirk up into a tiny smile.

Sakura… she was his best friend, and a true one at that. She was with him at his darkest hours, and she knew particularly every tiny detail about him. Sure at times, he hated her for being meddlesome, close-minded or ignorant about his profession, but at the end of the day he'd never wish for her to get out of his life. Even though he had Gaara's understanding nature, having Sakura was just a part of him now – she was like the sister he's never had – and he wasn't about to let her commit suicide from her cursed state. Just because the ghost he'd decided to keep wanted a chance at having some human-killing fun, it didn't mean that he'd allow her to be used so callously.

Seeing the tub filled with an appropriate level of water, Naruto made his way inside, trying to relax into the warm waters hugging his body rather than falter at the cold air that clung stubbornly to his body the minute he removed his bathing robes. However, before he could surrender to sweet, lukewarm heaven in his porcelain tub, a golden hue began appearing, and in mere moments he was staring right into dull, hollow eyes. At this, the blond sighed and disappeared under the water.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and dove under, following the other's lead. "If you think killing yourself will help your friend, then by all means, be my guest; at least you saved me the trouble of doing it myself."

At the ghost's comment, the blond raised his face out of the water and, wiping the water off his face, he exasperatedly retorted. "Why do you always think that I'll try to weasel my way out of our little agreement by dying?"

"Because you humans are always too cowardly to own up to your words, and death is always the easy way out."

"Well, I'm not too sure what type of humans you've been interacting with when alive and after death, but I assure you, there are still some of us who appreciate dignity, honesty… and _privacy_." He added, reminding the floating teen that this was his reserved time and stressing his lack of appreciation for the intrusion.

"Hmph. Don't go flattering yourself just yet; I came here on business."

"Business?"

"Yes. Here."

A small piece of crumbled paper found its way to the wetness of his right hand. Naruto blinked at the number scribbled on it and immediately recognized Sakura's handwriting.

"What's this?"

"I figured you'd want to call this Hinata person before you talked to her… so there's her number."

"Y-Yeah…" Shaking his head at the sudden lump forming in his throat, Naruto asked: "How did you get it?"

"My sired subject left it on the fridge the day she came to inform you of this woman's request. I simply took the eyesore and kept it."

"O-oh."

"Anyhow, I'm anticipating an interesting performance. Beware of making me bored."

Again, that cold stare was making him express further doubt about the dregs of humanity he saw inside the teen every now and then. Having nothing else to say –since his heart was too busy wallowing about what he should or shouldn't do– Naruto allowed the ghost to float out of the bathroom to wherever he was going to, and a sigh that he wasn't aware he was holding broke free from his lips.

His azure orbs darted towards the piece of semi-wet paper now placed on the washing machine to dry, and the relaxing heaven he wanted to reach turned into boiling hell as his body's temperature refused to go down and his heart twisted into labyrinths of bedlam.

Naruto just released a faint curse to express the frustration he truly felt and ducked his head under the water in an attempt to get some sort of relief.

* * *

"I'm not sure what you're trying to pull here, but I'm not a liar. When I say I'll make my way to her, that means I _will_. I won't run away, especially when Sakura's life is at stake."

"Hmph, I have no reason whatsoever to believe in the words of a human; besides, how would I have fun if I wasn't present to watch?"

Naruto heaved his umpteenth sigh for the day and fixed the tie on his shirt. He frowned again when the reflection of the male haunting his apartment stared amusedly back at his troubled eyes, and the blond returned his sight to the road. He wasn't going to cause a crash with the car he'd begged Gaara for over the phone, and he wanted to get to the hotel Hinata has said she was in without visiting the afterlife first.

Looking back at his situation three hours ago, when he picked up the phone and dialed the number on the crumpled paper, he didn't know how he'd maintained a cool head and was unfazed, even when the sound of his one and only love resonated back from the other side. He didn't know why he didn't feel the hatred he thought would come seeping to his soul the moment he heard her voice but for some reason that was alien to him, he'd somehow held a decent conversation with her – a conversation that he'd been dreading for years.

They'd started off with simple greetings, with him politely asking about her wellbeing and her reciprocating his airy queries. It had been after this exchange of pleasantries that Naruto proceeded to ask about her accommodations, and he could detect the faint whimper that escaped her mouth when she replied, reminding him of the old stutter that she had when they first met. Yes, those nostalgic memories gushed from the wound in his heart at the sound of her voice… but he continued with his detached façade. He refused to allow her to see the amount of damage she'd inflicted on him, or how he was struggling not to shiver or shake at the overwhelming emotions attempting to burst out from under his skin.

Somehow he pulled it off, keeping his calm long enough to agree on a date where they'd meet and pull their hellish conversation off. Afterwards, he headed straight for the bathroom and for the next hour he'd emptied his stomach contents – along with his roiling emotions – into the toilet. Naruto was just glad he was respected enough to be left alone, and wasn't embarrassed by having anyone see him in such a weak state, where his own muscles refused to comply with his simple mental orders to stop shivering.

Closing his eyes and shaking his head, the blond parked the car in the huge, fancy parking lot under the five-star hotel Hinata was staying at and once again, he had to remind himself of the wealth Hyuuga Hinata's mere name stood for. Just as he'd thought, he felt extremely out of place. Naruto made his way towards the inside of the hotel and sure enough, the hotel personnel came bowing to him the minute he entered, asking if there was anything he'd like their help with and at this, another memory forced its way to the forefront of his mind.

It was the first time Hinata had asked him to meet at a hotel for one of their dates, and happy to be invited by her for a change, he'd chosen to show with his normal attire – a hoodie and black jeans – as he'd thought nothing of it at the time. That proved to be the wrong move to make; for the second he was seen by the guards on either side of the glassy doors, he was firmly escorted out, under the impression that he was nothing more than a worthless troublemaker trying to make a racket inside the fancy hotel. No matter how much he tried to explain to them that that wasn't the case, and he was supposed to meet his girlfriend inside, no-one listened to him and he'd been forced to head back home in defeat.

He'd never felt so humiliated before in his life, and to make matters worse the difference between their statuses was firmly rubbed in his face and was forever engraved in his memory. For the first time in his life, he knew that his clothes would determine who he was and that the rich didn't care about his personality or identity – or anything human at all, for that matter – and that all they cared about was the inside of his pocket and what he chose to wear.

As Naruto stayed immersed in his thoughts, Sasuke glanced furtively at the hesitant steps the forced human was making, and a fleeting thought about him taking his fun too far flashed momentarily inside his head. However, in less than a second, he dismissed the human emotions in him and called the blond to strengthen up.

"I don't believe it's wise to show how rattled you are when your noisy friend's head is at stake..."

Naruto directed a glare up at the ethereal being. He couldn't snarl an insult to that ghost hovering over his head without being considered crazy in the place he was right now, so he released through clenched teeth, in a way that no one would notice. "I know what I need to do. You can just keep quiet and observe."

"Hn."

Asking the neatly dressed woman at the reception for the location of the French restaurant, the blond crossed towards there with hesitation racing through his apprehensive form. It was eight o'clock in the evening, the exact time he'd arranged to meet up with her at, and his heart started pounding harder with every step that brought him closer to her.

Surely enough, with a few correct turns, he came face to face with the extravagant restaurant. Naruto nodded to the waiter who had opened the door for him and silently acknowledged to the welcoming tone that asked if he had a reservation or needed a table. The blond recited the number of his reservation as his eyes lost themselves in awe at the exquisite decoration. It was a profligate place, with stylish people and some expensive food that he couldn't even pronounce, and he was sure that a new world was being opened up to him. Before he was able to awaken from his semi-enchanted phase, his eyes caught the glimpse of his old Hyuuga Hinata; his first true love, his first heartbreak, and his first real experience at anything so sweet and cruel that it'd ripped his soul out.

At that precise moment, everything around him lost all sense of importance.

Naruto felt his eyes trace Hinata's petite silhouette, as her form was hidden away from his sight by the table she'd chosen as their meeting ground, and the time differences they spent apart shone bright in the forefront of his mind. As he got closer to see her figure, he could identify the silky, black hair – which was longer than he'd recalled it to be – that loosely cascaded over her back and onto either side of her shoulder blades, and watched as a few locks swept gently forwards when she cast her charming, lavender-colored eyes downward to trace the lines of her potential order on the menu she elegantly held in one slender hand. Her skin tone was a little bit darker under the golden-yellow light the restaurant chose for relaxing their diners, and Naruto bit his lips at the small differences that were snidely being rubbed on his face to see.

He forced his eyes to flicker down and, swallowing the lump in his throat and clenching his hands, he made his way towards the lady clad in her graceful and chic rosso crosa red dress sitting a few tables to his right. He suppressed the pain in his chest that flared up with old memories of her gorgeous features back down and with a charming smile; he called out her name and watched as her calm eyes momentarily wavered from the rollercoaster of emotions that assaulted her being. However, before he could suppress the malicious thoughts that suddenly controlled him, the little demon in him rejoiced at the startled, guilty look that her eyes have finally settled into so, with the same charming smile spreading over his countenance, he said with delight:

"Hello, Hinata-chan, it's been a while."

And for the upcoming two hours, Naruto found himself turning into another human being; he was now a liar whose soul had chosen to leave his body until his spurting fit of lies came to an end. This ridiculous display of hidden emotions was overseen by a ghost, who floated away in the midst of the deceitfulness towards a place where he didn't feel such toxicity emitting and harming his own fragile form.

* * *

Naruto stepped out of the brand-new Lamborghini he was driving and closed the sand-colored door shut behind him. His eyes looked distantly at the mirage of lights before him and, feeling extremely drained, he loosened the tie strangling him and sat gently on the green –and somewhat wet – grass under him. Naruto felt a cold chill pass him by as the hill he chose to run to protected him from the noise of the city beneath, and he was allowed a minute to admire the breath-taking scenery he was beholding before a single word jolted him from his semi-blissful state.

"Liar."

He didn't need to raise his eyes up to know who released that soft, accusing whisper. With a tired sigh, he retorted to his judging ghost. "Anything wrong with lying?"

"You said you don't lie, but you did, which means you lied when you told me that. You're a _liar_."

"You wanted me to go against the person who turned my life upside down, and the only way I could cope was if I lied. Sasuke, if I didn't…" and slowly, Naruto directed sad eyes to the fading male, before he allowed a wistful smile on his face. "…I'd break."

Sasuke ignored the obviously pained look on the other's face and the way his tips were tingling at the weakness he was allowed to see, and hissed maliciously. "You're pathetic."

"…That I am."

"You allowed a _mere_ woman to shake you up."

"Guilty as charged."

"She doesn't know that she shook your world. She's leading a life free from any guilt or pain and you're lying to allow her to _continue_ like that?"

Naruto kept quiet and raised the bottle of beer to his tired lips. He sipped gently at it as the ghost changed his angle and approached him from the front.

"Why? I… I don't understand you. She broke you and converted you to this weakling who can't even face his problems properly, so why aren't you blaming her? Why aren't you getting angry with her? Why didn't you release all your frustration onto her? _Why are you shouldering everything on her behalf_?"

Naruto remained silent for a while, and Sasuke just floated beside him and waited patiently for the questions he'd asked to be answered. After a while, when a cold wave washed over them and it didn't seem like the human he was haunting was about to tell him anything, the handsome ghost whispered softly.

"Are you still in love with her?"

"Hmm…I wonder."

"You do know I still have your other friend sired to me, right? In a heartbeat I can have her kill–"

"Here's something I just don't get," Naruto interrupted the familiar line of threats Sasuke had grown accustomed to lately, and faced the startled male dead on. "Why are you so hung up on this? From what you've said before, you don't give a shit about me, and want nothing more than me leaving your apartment and let you in peace… But here you are, prying and asking questions that will only lead to you knowing me better, and when that happens we'll grow closer, which is something you don't want. I've tried to figure you out for a while now, but I can't seem to get anywhere; you're giving me mixed signals and I've had enough. So tell me, which one is it –do you want to get close or move away from me? If the latter is what you truly wish for, then this is a very odd way to tell me that."

Startled by the suddenness of the boxer's powerful words and the close proximity between them, Sasuke swiftly vanished from Naruto's eyes and reappeared above the beautiful scenery they were witnessing. With uncertain emotions running through his own brittle being, he glared down at the human.

"I can do whatever I want; you have no right to question me!"

"Well, Sasuke, news flash to you but _yes I do_. When you're sticking your nose into my business and rebuff me when I do the same, I think I have a damn right to ask why you're doing it. I'm sick and tired of all of your games already and trying to read past your every devious step. So right now, just tell me… what do you really want from me? Do you want us to get along or what?"

"Just because I showed a slight interest in you doesn't mean I want to know the world about you. The only thing I would want from you is for you to disappear. The moment you came into my apartment, you ruined everything, and the moment you disappear is the moment I'll finally have peace."

Naruto frowned at the barrage of words being thrown at him and with confusion evident in his tone, he tried to break through the hazy cloud. "Just tell me how I ruined everything for you."

"You're the big shot – you figure it out."

"I don't know about being a big shot or anything, but honestly, I've no idea about anything when it comes to you. If you're expecting me to think of ways that I've ruined everything for you, then I can't because as far as I can tell, I did nothing of the sort."

"Oh yes you did!"

"Then tell me! What did I do to you?!"

"You… you… you were there! Just there! In the place that no one other than me should have been present! You ruined everything by forcing me to be with you, forcing me to _trust_ you, forcing me to _give you my name_ and thus be forced to listen to your every word, and you did it all the moment you stepped into that apartment for the second time! Why…!"

"Sasuke," Naruto eased, trying to form a solid idea about what was going on around him. "I didn't force you into anything. It's true that I wanted you to remain in the apartment, but that's only because you seemed to love it so much. I couldn't deprive you of something that precious to you simply because you ceased existing… but the other things, those were all you; you wanted to let me know, and you wanted someone to be there."

"No, I didn't want to! You forced me! With that inhuman kindness of yours and that idiotic behavior, being careless and lowering your guard around me, showing me that you trust me and believe that I won't do anything to you; you basically forced me to expose myself to you! It was all your fault that I'm beginning to fall, beginning to hurt, beginning to… to remember."

The blond watched as the radiant gold that was always accompanying his ghost faded into a sorrowful gray that highlighted the darkness of the night and the navy blue that was already floating around Sasuke. A sudden gush of unidentified emotions washed over his tired limbs and he found himself trying to reach the other with his words.

"…Sasuke, I never meant for you to remember anything painful and if my behavior caused you any agony or discomfort then I'm sorry, but it wasn't my intention. I won't lie and tell you that I don't want to get closer to you, because I do… but I wouldn't want you to recall something painful because of me."

"Do you think a simple apology can cut it?"

"No, I don't, but you have to know that I'm only sorry for the bad things and for the pain you're experiencing. What I'm _not_ sorry for is having my emotions get through to you. I'm not sorry for your eventual connection to the human in you, and I'm not sorry that you want to get clos –"

"SHUT UP!"

Naruto's brows furrowed at the sudden shout and the ensuing explosion of emotions that engulfed the other. He held up both his hands in a futile attempt to protect himself when a blasting wind threw his body backwards and, with a few centimeters to spare, he missed the edge of the rock on the mountain freeway that he'd parked his car on. Groaning from the sudden pain that shot through his senses upon impact, Naruto slowly opened his eyes and, in horrified disbelief, he looked at the handsome male as the transparent skin grew darker, the entrancingly dark eyes were flooded by a deep crimson red, and the gray aura had completely swamped the usual blue and gold that constantly surrounded Sasuke.

Still lost in the state of misperception, Naruto stumbled his way back onto his two feet before he tried approaching the obviously agonized teen.

"Sasuke… can you hear me? Please calm down." He beseeched with a calm tone, hoping to reach Sasuke before he truly went berserk and caused the whole of Konoha Mountain to explode on them.

"No! Stay back! Don't you _dare_ come any closer!"

Naruto wanted to point out that he couldn't get closer even if he wanted to, thanks to the presence of the cliff and his current revulsion towards killing himself. Somehow, though, with what was going on, that sentence didn't prove to be the right thing to blurt out at the moment, and so he resorted to another train of thought.

"Sasuke, please listen to me. Right now you're suffering, and as you said it's all because of me… but it's killing me to see you like this. So please try to regain your conscience and control yourself before anything bad happens!"

However, the only answer he got was a hard shove towards the car he'd gotten from his old friend. This time, Naruto protected his hands, but he winced as the glass shuddered at the loud thud his body made and attempted to ignore the way some of his ribs complained at the rough shove. He knew better than to aim for the worked-up ghost after that vicious fight they had the first time, but the idiot in him chose to forget all that and go up against Sasuke with no sutras or sacred water to protect him.

At his own mental reminder, Naruto's eyes widened in sudden realization. He could use the sutras he'd learnt to restrain Sasuke's movements… but if he did that, the raven would lose all of his powers for three whole months. He wouldn't even be able to lift a tiny transparent finger, let alone float anywhere. Hence, if he recited the sutras out here, Sasuke would remain trapped out in the open hill for three whole months. Naruto sighed at the thought. Sasuke wouldn't like that very much and, even if he disregarded the ghost's wishes, his emotions were forbidding him; after all, he wanted to restrain Sasuke's powers, not doom him to a fate of powerlessness and weakness for three consecutive months.

Deciding that standing and walking towards the other whilst thinking of a way was better than wincing at the shattered glass of Gaara's Lamborghini –which was a whole other problem he threw to the back of his mind– Naruto began contemplating the ambiguity of a solution to this mess. He could force Sasuke to abide by the rules he'd forced him to comply with, but that wouldn't return the ethereal being to his good nature, it would just ensure that he wouldn't attack Naruto physically again; therefore, that idea was a no go. Biting his lips hesitantly, Naruto approached the ghost who'd –in the fits of emotions running through him– recently turned into an evil spirit.

"Sasuke! Listen to me: you need to wake up from this! You need to come back! Get to your senses and return to the real world! Please, wake up! I… I can't lose you here!"

He was right. Through these past few months they had been living together, those tenuous emotions Gaara had warned him from developing had developed without him noticing. Unfortunately, his perspective of the other had somehow switched from a charity-case he wanted to help move on to heaven, to a dear friend that he wanted to get closer to and know more about.

That was when it hit him, like a sudden unexpected storm; he now knew the answer to pulling Sasuke out of his chaotic emotional whirlwind. He clenched his hands as he hoped for success and, with a tinge of happiness that complimented his triumphant discovery of the ghost's potential cure, he opened his mouth and reasoned:

"Sasuke listen… earlier, you said you wanted to know why I lied when I was with Hinata, right? Well, I know I've been an ass about the answer… but that's only because it was just too silly for me to say. Actually, Hinata… she did a huge number on me, and she hurt me so deep that I've been having nightmares about it for months after she left me… so if I didn't lie, I wouldn't be able to sit with her on the same table, let alone be able to maintain a smile as she explained why she did what she did or why she left without an explanation the first time around. If I had collapsed right there and then… I wouldn't be myself anymore."

Naruto took a deep breath and watched as his words calmed the grey surrounding Sasuke and lightened its previously murky color. With a small, self-encouraging smile, he continued talking. "If I didn't lie, I wouldn't be able to provide you with the satisfying show you wished for –which, by the way, I had no idea what you were hoping to witness– and thus you wouldn't have released Sakura from your hex. I won't stand here and preach that I did it all for you and for her, since that would be the real lie, so I have to admit that I did it for myself… well, mostly for myself. She was my light and she was my darkness, she wrecked me and brought my heaven to hell and I detested, loathed and hated her so much that I started to gradually lose myself. I'd turned into a pathetic human being who was only good about feeling sorry for himself, and even though I knew she was wrong and I couldn't forgive her for what she did I stayed in this depressive state. Even if she _did_ know my real thoughts about her, there was no good that'd come out of it; the only thing would've been more agony and ache, for both her and me… and Sasuke, I'm tired of all the pain."

"…"

The blond paused for a moment as the weight of the words inside his body lightened with each syllable he enunciated. He felt a small smile try to break with the last few words and, with a tone of finality, allowed it to appear alongside his last few words on the matter.

"I… I didn't want the cycle of hatred in me to continue existing, or for her to see me lose my dignity, so that's why I lied. To the very end, I wanted her to see that what she did didn't shake me up all that bad –that, even after her deep betrayal, I was able to stand up and continue living my life normally- and Sasuke…" His gaze shone with assurance as he locked his calm, blue orbs with Sasuke's scared, red ones, which seemed to shake with the strong stream of emotions seeping through them, and added. "…you know, I also didn't want you to see my uncool side, but you ended up doing just that."

With that, he got close to the edge, causing Sasuke's chaotic brain to warn him that he needed to move away, and move away he did. Golden, somewhat-rough locks shook with Naruto's head movement, and with the same sad smile he'd adopted that awful evening, he explained.

"You don't need to raise your guard, since I'm not trying to reach you. I think… no, I'm sure that you did what you did –your whole deal with Sakura– because you wanted me to experience the same pain you're experiencing, which I did… I know it may not be the same pain as yours, but I did experience a despairing torrent of pain that made death sound like a nice dream in comparison. What I'm trying to say is this… since I related to your pain at some point, I understand why you did this, and I forgive you for it."

After that, Sasuke was forced to witness the chatterbox he roomed with for two whole months put one leg over the rail and then, while still smiling like an idiot, plummet headfirst into the vast valley beneath them. The crimson orbs that were blazing with a rollercoaster of emotions a second ago reverted to their usual hollow black as his horrified form was made to observe the blond sever all attachments to life and plunge to his inevitable death. Quickly, Sasuke forced his muscles to move and, pulling what was left of his exhausted strength, he formed a cushiony cloud of dim sapphire crystals and directed them to the falling blond. He hurriedly maneuvered the cloud to Naruto's side and was successful in rescuing the blue-eyed boxer before his head collided with the jagged rocks beneath.

Floating safely up to the hill, Sasuke softly returned Naruto to the inside of the crushed car and, with a confusion that was heavily laced with anger, he let his frustrations out in a burst of words.

"What the _fuck_ were you thinking?!"

The blond chuckled faintly as one of his hands weakly flopped over the right side of his chest and feebly attempted to hold the scream-inducing pain at bay. "…I… you said I ruined everything and that you wanted me to disappear. I thought if I went and disappeared, everything would clear up for you, and you'd return to normal… Well, I guess I was right."

Sasuke's confusion turned to heated anger in a split second and he glared, attempting to hold in the feeling of wanting to shove a rock inside that stupid mouth and silence the idiotic words streaming out.

"You're really a moron and sadly, you never cease to remind me of that."

"Hehehe… I'm just glad you're back to normal."

"What would have happened if I didn't, huh? What would you do if you died? Were you prepared to throw that dream that you begged your life for away, just for some harebrained cause?!"

"Hey, you have a lousy memory. Did you forget that I told you I don't mind losing my life for you? You're not just a roommate to me anymore, or a vengeful spirit that my bad luck had shackled me with… you're my friend. You're already a very close friend to me, so getting you back was even more important than my life."

Naruto raised his hand to cup the invisible cheek but sadly, before his hand could reach Sasuke's transparent skin; it fell as his internal bleeding intensified from the movement. In a state of self-preservation his body shut down any unnecessary system that was still on and thus, with a silent exhalation, he abandoned himself to sweet unconsciousness.

For about one minute, Sasuke floated aimlessly above, staring at the unconscious blond and at the hand that didn't quite continue its journey towards his face. As if he was lost to a trance, he stared in wonder at the shiny clear crystals pattering down from his tired eyes and watched as they made their way to his rosy cheeks, descended to his parted lips and finally ended their trip by dripping gently onto Naruto's fainted form. At that moment in time, in the aftermath of all that chaos, only one question drifted to the forefront of his frenzied brain.

…When was the last time he'd cried?

* * *

With burning sides and an agonizing pain that lanced through his systems the second he tried his luck out of bed, Naruto edgily limped towards the outside of his room with a slowness that could almost be mistaken as laziness. The apartment was dead silent, and he blinked as he tried to recall what had happened to him in the past few days; unfortunately, his memory came back blank. The last thing he remembered was the angry look that resided on Sasuke's face as he tried to wipe it off… then nothing else came to mind. He didn't remember how he got home, or how his wounds were healed – if they were healed to begin with– or why he felt as if he'd spent an eternity sleeping.

At last, one of his questions was answered by a cool voice that came from his left. "You'll feel some pain due to the aftereffects, but you're alright."

Naruto was jolted out of his own worries at the casual tone and, with a smile; he faced the floating male before he muttered. "…Hi."

The reaction he got from his simplistic greeting had him quirk a brow up at the ghost, but before he was able to question the faint pink hue that flushed over the other's semi-transparent cheeks, Sasuke's mouth blurted out.

"Breakfast should be done in five minutes; in the meantime you should wash up. I already prepared you a clean change of clothes in the bathroom, so hurry up already."

Yet again, before Naruto was allowed to reply, Sasuke vanished in a dazzling burst of golden dust and he heard the sound of the sizzling frying pan, indicating the current location the ghost had disappeared to. Sighing at the lack of an explanation, Naruto limped over to the bathroom as fast as the pain in his muscles would allow him and once inside, he tried to give himself a swift shower. Sadly, the soreness he was feeling caused his swiftness to be akin to that of a turtle's.

In the midst of a futile fight with the soap –which he'd been attempting to wash his back with – Naruto was taken aback by the face of his teenage roommate as it peered in from its awkward position in the wall. With a reaction of pure shock, he stumbled backwards and nearly fell on his ass in a way that would almost assure him of a concussion.

"Sasuke! I told you a thousand times not to stick your head through walls like that! Sheesh, you nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"What's there to be frightened of, chicken? Oh wait, don't tell me –you've finally comprehended the fact that I'm a ghost and that you should be scared of me?"

"Just shut up, kid, and get out of here. You seriously have no understanding of privacy."

A thin, black brow was raised at his scathing comment. "Oh. Privacy, you say…"

"Yes, _privacy_. You know, I would actually like to have a bath without you jumping at me every two seconds."

"Who do you think rescued your stinking ass that time you drowned in your own vomit? Who woke you up when you decided that sleeping in the nude was the best damn idea ever? Who dressed your lumpy body up? Ha, who?! Did that 'privacy' of yours do it? Like fuck it did; it wa–"

Naruto winced at the tone and interrupted before they started having a really weird conversation with 'privacy' as the topic of debate. "Alright, I know you know my naked body–"

"Oh, more than you know."

Whatever Naruto was set on saying after that sentence fled from his brain as his face picked up heat and his blood circulated close to the surface. In a minute, he snapped around with shock clearly shining in his azure orbs and, as a faint blush decorated his cheeks, he warily asked the question that Sasuke's tone had aroused in him.

"Sasuke… just what the hell did you do to my body?"

The floating ghost furrowed his eyebrows in a state of confusion, not quite getting the point of the other's question. However, when his eyes met Naruto's and registered his blushing features, they widened in realization and, without his permission, a beautiful shade of red began wreathing the area around his face.

"Oh. My. Dear. Lord. NO! Who would want to do anything with that worthless lump you call a body?! I'm not that desperate!"

"Worthless lump? Clearly, you lack the right vision, boy! This is an elite boxer's body! Do you know how many hours I spent carving these abs?! My body is anything but lumpy; it's perfect, and you should thank God for the privilege of getting to touch such a rare specimen!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes at the idiotic jock before him and spat. "Your obsession with that piece of lump you call perfection just proves to me how _retarded_ you are."

"Hey! No cursing your elders!"

"And who could _that _be?"

"Me, of course!"

The floating male moved closer to Naruto's heated face and, when he knew he had the full attention of the still-bathing blond, he hissed in an icy tone that drained all the warmness of Naruto's bath with it. "I don't believe I've ever said I was younger than you on any occasion; don't go around assuming unnecessary things solely based on my exterior."

Naruto allowed his legs to give up on him and slid into the water-filled porcelain as he gave up on any sort of truth the other male deigned to release from his lying lips. He was just too tired to care anymore.

* * *

"So, how old are you really?"

"Why is age such an important matter to you?"

"Hmm…it's not, but it would give me an indication of what I can and can't say around you."

Sasuke rolled his eyes as one of his fingers directed the plate towards Naruto's side of the table. He floated towards the opposite end of the table and crossed both his arms over his chest; then gazed at the buffalo before him as he attacked the breakfast Sasuke has spent such delicacy making, and grumpily mumbled.

"…It's not like it's going to go anywhere."

Naruto grinned at those words, before he swallowed and happily retorted. "Yeah, but this is the first time you've made me anything, and it tastes like I'm eating a piece of heaven right now~"

"Stop exaggerating. In any case, you should be disgusted; for goodness' sakes, a _ghost _made your breakfast for you. What if I had put poison inside, huh?"

"Sasuke, I thought we were past the doubting phase already. Besides, if you wanted me dead, you could have killed me that night we were on that cliff; no one would know and you won't have to dirty your lovely apartment. Actually, you didn't even need to do anything and you could have just let me fall; but you didn't… hence…"

The blond left the sentence to trail off and continued consuming the breakfast that has been made for him, before he was interrupted again.

"You're a fool."

"I know. So tell me, what exactly happened to me? I'm pretty sure I had one or three ribs broken, so did you take me to a hospital or something?"

Sasuke shook his head and raised his glowing right palm to the blond, before he added on. "I used my powers to heal you but since you're human, the process is taking longer than it should."

"…What process?"

"The healing process, what else? I basically stimulated your cells to regenerate faster than normal. It's not fast enough to cure you in a single day but if I had to make an educated guess, I'd say the process is about seventy percent complete. By tomorrow, you'll be as healthy as a horse."

"Aha…but I thought you can't touch me. How did you stimulate my cells without touching me?"

"I don't need to directly touch you to stimulate the cell. It's energy – it can be passed without direct contact – and in any case, _'stimulate'_ isn't the right term here, since what I did was simply give some of my energy to you."

Naruto blanched at this explanation. "…Wait, your energy?"

"Yes."

"_Dead people's_ energy?"

"Would you rather have me leave your ass to die then?"

At the spitting tone, the blond backed off and acquiesced with a nervous smile. "Alright, alright, thank you for helping me. I don't have any more complaints, okay? Anyways, how's Sa–?"

"She's fine." Sasuke cut in before the question could be completed. "Since you stuck to your side of the deal, I released her. Her memories are still overwritten, so alas she won't remember much about the things I made her do while she was sired…Though there's a possibility that she might have some dreams about them."

"If it's just dreams then I don't mind."

"Hn."

After that, as the raven ghost floated away from the table with the presumption that their conversation was over, Naruto allowed him to leave as he went back to his food. Finishing the dishes prepared for him without further delay, he quickly washed them and returned them to their respectful places, before he made his way towards his room and allowed a small smile to blossom on his features. Clearly, he was getting through to Sasuke – he wasn't sure if the reason was the big gamble he made on that cliff that dark night, or whether Sasuke was just tired of hatred and wanted to connect to a person – yet whatever the reason was, he was just glad to know that they were finally seeing things eye to eye.

Still, he had no tangible or intangible clue about what the other was like. He had no real information about him, as he had nothing as simple as his age or as big as the circumstances surrounding his death. He had nothing at all.

Naruto sighed as he walked over to his room to fetch his lost phone; he just hoped that, with time, the beautiful ghost haunting his apartment would allow him to get closer and learn the truth about him. For now, though, he needed to return back to his daily life and matches. As he finally found the small device and checked the date and time on his cell phone, all color drained from his face.

"Sasuke!" He exclaimed in shock, running back to the living room in which the ghost liked to enjoy his free time. "Why the hell didn't you tell me I've been out for a whole freaking week and a half?!"

The floating male merely shrugged and raised a brow at the freaked out blond. "It's simple: you didn't ask."

"Oh my God, Sasuke! I've a very important match today and I didn't prepare at all! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shika-chan will _murder_ me for not attending practice! Holy fuck, I'm screwed!"

"What happened to your rule of not cursing in front of minors?"

"Well, you aren't a minor, now are you?! And Sasuke, I can't _believe_ you did that to me! Didn't anyone call or come by to check up on me?!"

"They did, so I chased them out and disconnected the phone line as well, for good measure. You know I hate trespassers, and besides, there was no need for their intrusion."

"Sasukeeeeee!" Naruto whined, making his way towards his room. "Why would you _do_ that?! Now, even if I said I was sick in bed, no-one would believe me and I'm going to have to live through having my head offered on a platter after my disastrous match! Shit!"

As the ghost watched the human get dressed in record time and put on his sneakers while ignoring the unappreciative protests his muscles sent to his brain, Sasuke found his mouth twitch upward and –for once– he dropped the stoic mask he always had on. He floated towards the front door as Naruto was about to get out of the apartment and quietly reasoned.

"You know, you're overreacting. It's not like it's the end of the world when you miss a single week and a half of training, and besides, you don't need to attend today's match, seeing as you're still healing."

"Sadly, life doesn't work like that. I'd already ditched my team that week, when you wanted me to get here as quickly as possible, and now I've missed another whole week and half of serious practice! If I miss this match, Shika-chan would surely fire my ass from the team –and seriously, do you have any idea how hard I trained my ass off to get on the regulars? Besides, I won't have any income to provide for myself now and…aggghh!" Naruto groaned as he spared a glance at his watch. "We'll continue this later! I need to run! Bye, and don't open the door to strangers!"

With those parting words, Sasuke found himself left alone in the vast apartment. He wanted to clarify that he wasn't a kid who needed to be told what to and not to do, but he was sure that, in the midst of the shouts the other was experiencing, he had a zero chance of making the human who had invaded his darkness listen to him.

Sighing, he heard the front door lock and returned inside, enjoying the quietness that would surely be wrecked the minute Naruto returned home. With an annoyed shake of his head, Sasuke overlooked the sudden warmth that spread inside his translucent existence at that thought, and resolved to relish his peace for as long as it existed.

* * *

Naruto wiped the sweat off of his forehead and continued running. The right side of his muscles hurt like hell, but he couldn't allow the pain to get in the way of his punishment. He was made to do a hundred laps, eighty pushups and undergo two practice matches –one against Gaara, the other against Kiba – to increase the stamina that he'd lost during the week and a half he'd lost from his useless state of rest at home.

As much as he wanted to correct their misconceptions for them, he couldn't change their stubborn minds. Groaning, he dropped at the completion of his last lap and tried to regain whatever was left of his strength.

"Here." A bottle of cold water was thrown at his drained form, before the curt voice continued. "You know better than to miss out on practice for a whole week and a half."

Naruto thanked his best friend and gulped down the cold water, taking a moment to relish the icy feeling inside his parched throat, before he rasped out. "Yes, I do, but Sasuke decided that playing with my life would be fun… so I had to tag along."

"That's a very stupid reason – by the way, before I forget; why did you give my car to Kankuro? I told you to drop it by the house and put the key in the mailbox."

The blond mentally died of shock for the umpteenth time that day as the events of what had happened to Gaara's beloved Lamborghini washed over him like a cold, unpleasant shower of ice shards. "…Umm…c-c-car? Y-You got your car?"

Gaara raised an invisible brow at the stuttering and suspiciously questioned the other. "What's that supposed to mean? Weren't you the one who'd delivered it to my house?"

"Err… well, yeah… you didn't notice anything wrong with it?"

"Should I?"

"…If you didn't, then I guess everything is alright."

"Uzumaki, what was that pause for? And what the hell did you do with my car?!"

Naruto had to calm down the beast above him before he was sent to the hospital, this time for the open scalp that an angry Gaara was very famous for carving on his opponents. "C-Calm down, Gaara, I didn't do anything… but there was a small incident. If you didn't notice then that means Sasuke took care of it, so just forget about it already."

"…"

"C'mon, dude! You know I wouldn't do something serious with it, and I swear to God it was just a small incident!"

The blond boxer relaxed when Gaara lowered his hands and listened as the redhead silently glared at him and muttered warningly. "You know what, that ghost of yours is clearly isn't good news. You should exorcise him already and get all of this over and done with."

"Gaara, I can't do that. We are finally beginning to connect, and I refuse to throw all the progress we've made down the drain."

"See, this is what I don't get; why are you doing this? Why do you want to get closer to him?"

"Umm… right now, I can't really answer that. Even so, I just can't exorcise him..."

"You still remember my advice?"

"Not to get attached?"

"Exactly. Every time you feel the urge to know more about him, just remember that. You can't get attached to dead people, in every known religion that's a very bad news, and you should know that."

Naruto sighed and stood up from the dirty ground, before he dusted himself off. "You don't need to worry about that. Anyways, shouldn't you be sparring with me right now? Come; let's see what you've got!"

"Before that, I think you should go meet the new president who's bought our team."

"Bought our team? We were in the market?"

"Apparently."

"I didn't know."

"Of course you wouldn't. All this time you've been focusing on nothing but the pile of air you call Sasuke!"

Naruto eased, not wanting to enter into a useless fight while he was about to pass out from tiredness. "Gaara… please. Let's just get on with it already…"

The redhead rolled his eyes and nodded as he made his way towards the inside of their training center, while Naruto keenly followed behind. "…Actually, you should go and wash up first, so you can go meet the new boss. He wanted to meet all members of the team, but since you decided to take a whole week and a half off, you weren't able to meet him."

"Wait, before I forget… why was our team sold?"

"Basically, we're good. The previous owner, Mr. Machida, needed to get himself quick cash and some hot shot in the sport and business industry wanted us, so we were sold. Actually, the whole story is unclear as of yet and I don't really give a shit about any of that, so if I'm to continue boxing and I'm able to get money out of it then I'm satisfied. You're the same, right?"

Naruto grunted as he was escorted to the showers. "Well, yeah, but don't tell me there's some silly new rules I'll need to abide by. I'm still trying to live up to the former ones Gai-sensei is already suffocating us with, and I don't need more to add to my grief."

Gaara smirked, remembering just how bad his best friend was with set rules. "Be happy then; so far, he didn't change anything in the club, training lists, programs or tournaments. However, keep on your guard – you never know, he could change his mind at any moment and decide that we aren't good enough for him."

"And who is _he_, anyway?"

"I told ya, he's a hot shot dude in the sport and business industry; he's pretty much a rich snob."

"I don't really think you should be badmouthing your new employer like that, Gaara-kun."

Naruto blinked at the new, unfamiliar voice that rang through the walls inside the showers and, peeking from behind the suddenly deathly aura his longtime friend was emitting, his eyes widened in surprise and shock as he stuttered.

"H-Hinata?"

The intruding stranger frowned at the nickname, before he chuckled when the name seemed to click inside his brain. "I see you're familiar with my cousin there, Uzumaki Naruto-kun. I'm afraid I'm not her though; the name is Hyuuga Neji, your fifth boxer and the new addition to your team. It's nice to finally make your acquaintance."

Absentmindedly, Naruto grasped the pale roughness of the other's hand that was extended to him, and clarified the new boxer's words. "So you're… Hinata's cousin?"

"Yep~! Call me Neji, and I'll call you Naruto; how's that for you?"

"Don't, Naruto." Gaara's warning tone echoed through the hollow shower room, robbing the blond of his chance at an answer. "If you do that, it'd be like surrendering your soul to the devil."

"How mean, Gaara-kun! I refuse to be called the devil here. I'm merely one of his helpers, since the real devil is none other than your new master~" Neji chirped happily, winking playfully to the still-dumbfounded blond.

"…Our new master?"

"Yep! Anyhow, I need to get ready for tonight, seeing as how I'll be taking over that match that you were supposed to have, but oh well. Work is work, and we can't all act hooky like someone here by ditching the source of our living~"

Gaara slammed his hand on the locker beside him and continued glaring heatedly at the lavender-eyed raven as he angrily snapped. "Shut it, pest! Naruto isn't someone who plays hooky with boxing! He truly loves it, which is more than you can say, since you're just using it as a mean to spend your excessively dull free time with a plaything! He has a perfectly good reason to miss this past week and half of practice, and a lowlife like you has no right to question him about it!"

The long haired raven allowed an amused chuckle to break out of his mouth, and he made his way closer to the fuming redhead before he daringly purred. "Hmm… I don't remember ever saying anything bad about Naruto-kun for you to get this defensive, but dear God, you're just making me fall harder for you."

At that moment in time, Naruto was made to witness all walls of reason he'd known since he was a child be smashed to the ground right before his eyes when the rude raven's lips connected to Gaara's in a hot kiss that was clearly forced down the other's throat. Straight afterwards, he turned into stagnant pile of goo as the violating Neji winked to his friend and whispered some parting words, before he then waltzed out of the shower room, clearly indicating that he'd had enough with turning everything upside down with his vulgar behavior.

Gaara just tsk'ed, wiped his mouth and told Naruto that he was going to check on their ring, afraid that the new disaster by the name of Hyuuga Neji would wreck it and that nothing would remain as he'd known it if he didn't go and keep an eye on him. A small part of him warned that this was the beginning of the end and that he should prepare himself for it, but the other, greater part snapped out of his shock and told him that he should just turn a blind eye and forget whatever shit he's just seen.

After taking the cold shower he'd decided to take, Naruto went with the latter choice and allowed his brain a minute to forget everything that'd caused his muscles to tense up in agony and his brain to turn into a chaotic mess. After all, he was broke, with a messed up body and a job that he wasn't sure he was going to keep –not to mention the ghost he was talking to as of late – so in the bad state that he was in, what could possibly get worse and screw him up more?

The simple answer was…nothing. He was already at rock bottom, and _man_ did rock bottom stink of sweatiness, dampness and total failure. With a quiet sigh, Naruto slid slowly down into a slum of depression, and allowed the icy waters above to pound relentlessly on his exposed frame.

* * *

**Lol…now Naruto is finally getting the jest of his situation. Troubles are coming, ho, ho, ho~ xD Thanks for reading so far! I promise, the next chapter will be up in a shorter duration than this one. So stay tuned and don't forget to review on your way out~ :D**


	4. Chapter Four

**Author's Notes:**

**Hi, everyone. Hope you all are alright! I'm sorry for the delay, but life is life, you can't expect what may delay you from posting a chapter, but we always hope for nothing to delay. xD In my case, my Beta got sick, poor thing, and by default her health was more important than anything~! :D So thank you, Fyrshi, for sticking to this story even though you were sick~ here a dozen of roses for you alone :3 and everyone, thanks for reading so far, don't be mad xD next time, I'll update quicker~. And as always, enjoy~~**

* * *

Knocking on the wide smoothness of the black mahogany door, Naruto waited for permission to be allowed inside and when a faint 'come in' was the given reply, he pushed the door open and let himself in. Fixing his attire appropriately, he identified himself to the new owner of their team with a cheery exclamation.

"Uzumaki Naruto in your service, sir!"

An amused chuckle found its way from behind the office chair that was turned away from him, and slowly it was rotated around to reveal an amused looking raven. Strangely enough, the male had Naruto blinking in confusion at the startling similarity that he shared with someone he knew, but couldn't pinpoint at that exact moment.

Long tresses of silky black hair softly graced the sides of the pale and highly entertained features looking at him, and Naruto was lost in admiration of the darkness of the irises, complimented by the eye bags beneath, which showed him just how hard his new boss has worked in his life to get to where he currently was. Finally, after much staring, he was allowed to hear the deep tone that immediately matched the authoritative aura that shrouded the other.

"You need not to be on your toes, this isn't the military." Extending his hand towards one of the chairs in his office, the Uchiha heir offered. "Please, have a seat."

Naruto inwardly grimaced at his own behavior and sheepishly sat down. "Y-Yeah… thank you."

"You must've acquired a great deal of unholy gossip about me – hence your nervousness – but I assure you, I don't bite."

Still feeling a little embarrassed, Naruto truthfully replied. "I wouldn't say I didn't, but they were quite a few rumors…"

"Well then, since I didn't really do anything beforehand, what you've heard couldn't be too bad. In any case, I'm afraid I've not introduced myself as of yet; I'm Uchiha Itachi, the new owner of your team, and I'm aiming for perfection, since I'd like for us to bring home world championship titles. Your help would be of great assistance in order to reach that goal."

Naruto smiled back and nodded to express his welcoming attitude to the other. "Same here. I hope we can get along well from this day on."

"Alright, Uzumaki-san; since formal introductions have been made, I'd like to let you know the rules that are to be effective from this moment onwards. I've already told your former teammates about them, and they didn't seem to mind so... for starters, please have this."

The blond boxer was handed a sheet of paper, and he quickly skimmed through it for the main idea before he mumbled aloud. "A training schedule?"

"Precisely. I've watched all your previous matches and I was able to conclude your strong points, as well as your weak ones; for example, since you're good with right-handed punches, this schedule would have you concentrate on improving the left ones. You need to be flawless for the upcoming matches and so far, I seriously believe you're only using forty percent of your whole potential."

"But Gai-sensei said I'd improved a lot."

"You've certainly come a long way from your first game, but in terms of international matches you're still raw. I need to polish that rawness of yours alongside that of your other mates if this team ever wants to compete internationally."

"Hmm…I understand. So if I follow through with this, I'll get stronger, right?"

Itachi nodded and elaborated on his answer. "Yes, but you won't be able to keep it up by yourself; that's why I've assigned a personal coach for you."

"A new coach? But Gai-sensei is responsible for me…"

"And he taught you very well – everything he knows, to be precise. Still, you need to learn new tricks and as I see it, you need someone else's guidance."

"Did he say that himself?"

Itachi placed his right palm on the table and looked the blond straight in the eyes. "Uzumaki-san, you're a boxer, so you need to think of getting experience and furthering your skills. If you commit yourself to only one coach, you'll never improve, because this is the world of boxing and each and every day someone new is coming along, new moves are created and new stars shine. You need to keep evolving to continue shining, or else your light will dim like the rest of the raw stones that refused to be polished."

"But… but…"

"If you don't like it, I won't force you into it. However, as your new boss, I won't just stand by idly and watch you waste your talent, and thus I'll cut you a deal–"

"What type of deal are you talking about?"

"From now 'til a month later, you'll train with the coach I've prepared for you. Afterwards, if you don't see any improvement in your style, you can return back to Gai-sensei. However, if your style improves and you acknowledge it yourself, you'll stick with the trainer I've secured for you. Is that fair enough?"

The blond felt that he was being offered a lot, since the other could simply force him to change to the new trainer. The contract that was binding them ensured that he couldn't say a word of refusal, but he was being honored here; as person and a boxer who had the right to choose who he wanted to get knowledge from. Smiling, Naruto nodded and happily made his choice.

"Alright. I agree to it. I'll go with the one month trial."

"I knew you'd see it my way."

Shortly after those words were spoken, the door was knocked gently and Itachi allowed the new intruder to walk inside. Naruto looked up at messy silver locks that stuck out at bad angles and framed the other's fierce face, and his attention wandered to the eye patch covering the sole long scar that extended out of it. He gulped the sudden thrill that washed over him, but before he could comment on the situation he was interrupted by a grumpy tone.

"Itachi, why do you need to call people so freaking early in the morning?" The silver-haired male complained, taking a seat in one of the empty armchairs in the vast office.

"Sorry for that, Kakashi, but I needed your help." The cunning calm of his black orbs faced Naruto as the other tilted his head in question. "Uzumaki-san, meet Hatake Kakashi – he's going to be your trainer for the next month. I've already briefed him about your condition and the state of your boxing, so you can begin immediately."

Naruto smiled at the experienced-looking male and introduced himself. "Hi, I'm Uzu –"

"I know who you are, and if you want to return to the ring in less than a fricking month for your next match then you'd better follow me right now. Those pathetic punches of yours wouldn't harm a fly, let alone allow you to win a single match, so we're going to work on those once you get moving."

With that, Kakashi walked out of the office and Naruto blinked at the sudden rude behavior, before he looked questioningly at his new employer. With the polite and detached smile still fixed on his face, Itachi started explaining the situation to the blond boxer.

"I've withdrawn the whole of the team from any matches this month, since I want serious work to be done and noticeable improvement to be seen; as I stated before, I'm aiming for perfection. If you want to return to boxing then you should work real hard to improve, Uzumaki-san."

Naruto's brows furrowed at the unfamiliar words, and his confused question echoed from his lips. "And if that didn't happen?"

"You shouldn't bother your mind too much about that; let the future be what it will. Anyway, you should run along now; Kakashi isn't a person who likes to be kept waiting, after all."

The smile told him all he needed to know. If he didn't win the assigned match for him after a month and show serious improvement, he'd have to kiss his teammates goodbye, along with his salary. With an inward groan, Naruto excused himself from the Uchiha's company and walked out towards whatever ground his rude new coach was on.

* * *

Sasuke's brows furrowed together as he directed another icepack to cover the purple bruise that was making itself apparent on Naruto's tanned left bicep. Snorting, he made the emotions he was feeling visible as he unamusedly snapped.

"Quit boxing."

"I'm afraid that's out of the question right now, Sasuke."

"Then avoid getting injured. I'm tired of trying to heal you every time you come home with something broken."

"And I'm tired of telling you that you don't need to fix anything. My body is perfectly capable of fixing itself… it takes time, but eventually I'll heal."

"Yeah right, and I'll have to listen to your pathetic whining throughout the night."

"You can always close your ears." The blond offered with a tiny grin, bearing the pain that flared up when Sasuke forced the icepack to grind hard on his already bluish bruise before he gave up and emitted a loud groan.

"Hmph!"

"Sasuke… please, I'm already in a deep enough pain as it is…"

The ghost rolled his eyes and allowed the icepack to lighten its weight on the bruise and having finished tending to all visible bruises, he floated close to the head of the lying idiot and mumbled. "I don't see why you're forcing your body to go through this torture."

"Umm…see, there're some things in life that you just can't live without, and for me that's boxing. I don't want to lose myself and who I am, so that's why I'm going through with this. Besides, it's not all bad; I'm learning new moves now, and sooner or later I'll be able to perfect them."

"If you ask me, I think you're just being tortured."

"Well, yeah. But in the end, I'll turn into a real, professional boxer."

"I thought you were a professional boxer."

"I thought so, too… but apparently, I wasn't."

"This is just stupid."

Naruto released a laugh that proved to be a mistake when his ribcage complained. "That's what I said on the first day of training."

Sasuke floated away, unconsciously forcing Naruto to follow his movements with his eyes. "Your stupidity and masochism aside, there's nothing inside the fridge to feed your bottomless pit with, so you'd better find a way to get groceries."

"Even if I want to, I'm broke as hell, so unless you can miraculously conjure up groceries for me, I'm afraid I'll just have to stay like this."

"Dummy, look here –I can use my energy to stimulate your cells, but without your own energy that stimulation would be worthless. You need to eat."

"Sasuke," Naruto retorted, sitting down to be able to continue the eye contact he had going on with the ghost. "I told you, I'm broke."

"Go get money from the one who's torturing you then."

"In what twisted rulebook does it say he has to pay for anything I need? He's my coach, not my bank."

"Well, I don't care –beg your worthless friends if you're desperate – but you need food!"

With a goofy grin overflowing with happiness, the blond amusedly retorted. "You know what? Right now, I'm just happy you care so much about me. Besides, even without food, you don't need to worry about me since I will survive regardless."

Naruto had to dodge the seven icepacks that were suddenly thrown at his tired form and with a wink at the flustered being; he cowered behind the cushion on the bed.

"Sasuke, you're still cute when you're embarrassed~"

"If you don't want to lose your life right here, I suggest you shut that trap of yours now."

With that, the ghost began floating away, ignoring the red that mixed a little too well with his colors, and also decided to ignore his name, which glided all too freely out of Naruto's lips as he kept on calling him. He bit his lips at the way the other was breaking through all of his walls and invading his protections like that, and he feared how they were getting rather familiar with each other. They were getting so familiar that the lines he worked so hard to draw were becoming hazier and hazier to his eyes right now, and he didn't like it one bit.

If they blurred, then that meant he would bond with another human and then he would get the urge to spill everything that had happened to him; namely, how he closed his eyes to life and how he'd turned to the being he was, trapped between life and death. Being unable to return to his own body or move on to the afterlife… turning into an existence that parents warned their children about and grownups mocked… he'd need to expose the truth, and that was something he did not wish for.

Sasuke sighed to himself as a part of his mind thought back to the hurting blond in the opposite room and, in a minute, his thoughts shifted to how he'd go about getting some food for Naruto to digest. There was a hidden part of his power that he failed to tell the other, since he'd thought that it wasn't needed, but right now he was contemplating whether that was the right decision or not.

It was an action akin to a side effect; just like the adverse effects that some drugs owned, his powers also had negative connotations. If a human consumed a great deal of his energy, and that human failed to generate his own, then he'd be forever dependent on him –even if his own energy returned, he wouldn't be able to survive unless that energy came from the ghost that fed him the first time around. Sasuke smirked to himself at the notion; if he'd thought about that the first time he was bound to this apartment, he could have actually gone with this plan because it was perfect. He wouldn't even need to break a sweat. All he would need to do is give the blond small, consecutive dosages of his energy, until it accumulated inside his body and overlapped with the energy produced by his own cells.

Then Naruto's body would forever be dependent on his energy and when that happened, he'd simply stop the supply and watch as his prisoner died a slow and painful death. Sasuke sighed and slapped a hand on his forehead; what the heck was he thinking about here!? That was in the past, and they'd already passed that hurdle, but…

He still couldn't get close.

The agonizing ghost was jolted out of his own self-wallowing when a tender voice reached his drums, and he turned to find a half-naked Naruto looking at him with a worried set of eyes.

"Sasuke, you alright?"

"…I'm fine."

"No, you're not." Naruto walked closer to Sasuke, who glided away reflexively. "See, you're not fine."

"Moving away doesn't mean I'm not fine."

"Then stay still if you're as you say you are, and let me examine you."

"Are you stupid? You won't even be able to touch me, so what's the point?"

"Well, about that… we never actually tested that. I mean, sure, the first time we fought my hand went right through you, but maybe that was only because you were concentrated on fighting… look, the point is that I did some research, and some people say that touching ghosts depends on the person's state of mind, and if a person wishes for it enough then he can touch a ghost."

"I don't know which is sillier; you researching ways to touch me, or actually believing stupid shit like that."

"Sasuke, there's no harm in trying."

The floating teen rolled his eyes and growled, trying to suppress a glare. "Why do you want to touch me in the first place anyway?"

Naruto's face took a confused turn to it when his brows knotted together. "Why wouldn't I want to touch you?"

"Answer the question right."

"Hmm… I never thought of it really, but I just want to touch you. Isn't it normal for friends to want to touch their friends?"

"We… we aren't friends."

"If you said one more word about our relationship being akin to one between a warden and his prisoner, so help me God, I will –"

"What? You'll what? Exorcise me? Go ahead; I'm not afraid of that!"

Naruto scowled. "If you think that the only way I can harm you is by exorcising you, then you're more naïve than you appear!"

Suddenly, the blond's hand flew towards the place Sasuke's left wrist was floating and in a mere second, he made to seize the transparent skin, yet what passed through his hand was nothing like solid skin or breezy air. It was a shocking jolt of electricity that shot sizzling waves through his systems and as a normal impulse his hand jolted back, and he was left to stare at his fried palm.

Sasuke clenched his hand and bit his lips. He knew it wasn't going to work; trying to grasp his wrist was just a foolish idea. The jolt Naruto must have felt was just a small degree of what had happened to him. Since the effect on his fragile form was amplified, he had to muster a lot more of his energy to try and regain his senses from that initial hit.

"S-Sasuke…"

"I told you it's not going to work!"

Naruto shook his head and directed pure sparkling orbs at the hesitant male above. "That was amazing!"

"Huh?"

"I felt this awesome rush when we'd connected! This is the first time I've felt something like this and it was just… breathtaking!"

"…Naruto, what the hell are you blabbering on about?!"

"N-Naruto?" More sparkles and stars appeared in the azure orbs facing him and Sasuke felt a loud warning go off inside his head. "Again! Say my name again!"

"M-Moron, stay away!"

Sasuke moved away from the crazy person haunting him and attempted to avoid the other's efforts to relive the awesome thrill once more and grasp a hold of him. While still trying to process how all of this has happened, he was finally forced to disappear in fits of gold, blue and red due to the persistent efforts of the other.

Naruto whined in protest at the disappearance of his roommate-slash-toy and groaned aloud.

"Sasuke, you idiot~!"

* * *

"So… you're his trainer?"

"Yep."

"I didn't think Gaara needed a trainer." Naruto blinked with a tilt to his head.

"Well," Neji started as he gracefully tied the lusciously smooth strands of his hair into a high ponytail so as to not have it tangle up when he began doing his warm-ups. "Have you noticed how he always tends to lash out at an opponent right from the start? He doesn't preserve his energy and doesn't take gaps between punches –basically, he acts like a total savage the moment the bell rings."

Naruto frowned as he stepped down from the ring. "I thought that was a good thing…"

"Normally, it is, but Gaara-kun only does that because he lacks the skill to preserve his energy. He doesn't think of the 'what ifs' that could occur during a match. Luckily for him, this style of his has won him several matches before, but in the future, this style will become detrimental to his chances of winning bouts. Since I've a pretty good idea on how to save up energy during a match, I'm acting as his coach for the month."

"Ahaa… I get that, but just out of curiosity how did you get him to agree to it? Gaara hates you."

"Naruto-kun, saying hate isn't very nice." Neji commented as he began the complicated and sequential activity of stretching his leg muscles.

"Oh, sorry," The blond tried to think of another word that would describe the feelings Gaara emitted whenever the beautiful raven was present. "How about… he doesn't like you very much?"

"Better. Still, that won't last for long; I'll have him like me within this month. Just wait and see, and you'll definitely be blown away by my skills."

"You somehow strike me as a person who doesn't know what 'impossible' is."

"In this world, if you succumbed to things people tell you 'you can't have', you won't get anything you want."

"…And you want him." Neji gave the blond a happy smile that answered the hidden question, and Naruto nodded in understanding before he added a warning. "However, you should know that Gaara isn't an easy cookie. The last time I saw him dating was one year ago when his sixth girlfriend had left him; apparently, girls can't stand his one-way personality."

"Those women were foolish, and they lacked the right mean to conquer his heart. Besides, I believe Gaara-kun hasn't ever met a person like me before – a person able to flip his world upside down."

"Well, I don't know about Gaara, but I certainly haven't."

"Thank you, Naruto-kun, that's a compliment I take pride in."

"He wasn't complimenting your sadistic ass." The angry tone of the person who was the object of their conversation hissed from the door of the gym as he walked in and slammed the door behind him. With rage-filled steps, Gaara threw the black bag on the long-haired raven's head and grumbled. "And here's your shit. If you're going to give me some training to do, give me something harder!"

Neji continued smiling as he rifled through the bag, got out a CD and threw it back to the angry male's hands. "I'm giving you special training that's just for you, baby. Go home and watch this, then memorize everything in it, and don't sleep until you finish watching it all. Tomorrow, I'll stop by your house and see what you learnt from it, okay?"

Gaara looked at the CD he'd been forced to buy and snorted. "How will this help in boxing?"

"Your love for questioning everything I ask of you is the reason why you're stuck with me. Now, run along and watch it, before you ask anything more of me. See you tomorrow."

As he said this, Neji hopped into the ring, signaling to Gaara that their conversation have officially finished. Naruto looked from the calm raven towards the fuming redhead –who glared hard at the retreating back before he slammed his way outside– and sighing, he took his gloves off and confusedly asked the remaining male.

"Why do you need to irritate him all the time?"

"He won't listen to me if I don't."

"You know, Gaara is not a complicated person; he's rather quiet, and normally he doesn't hate people… Actually, now that I think about it, he doesn't care much about people to hate or love them. You just need to know how to stay off his bad side and you'll be fine."

"But dear Naruto-kun, if I did that I would be just like all the other airheaded people he used to know. I need him to flare up, detest me, and reach the phase of hating me. I want him to hate me more than anything else in the world!"

Naruto frowned, not getting at where the other was heading with this. "Normally, people would want the one they like to like them back, not hate them."

"True, but there's always a very fine line between love and hate."

"…And you're counting on it?"

"If he loves me too much then I'll always be in his heart, but if he hates me too much, I'll always be in his mind. And I'd rather have his mind and conquer my way into his heart than just get his heart and be a complete stranger to his mind."

Naruto just sweat-dropped at the evil force that was marking his best friend as its next target and continued about his business. He just hoped that Gaara was prepared for what was aiming for him and that whatever happened next wouldn't end result in him quitting the team…

* * *

"Oh right! Sasuke, I need your help with something." The blond exclaimed as he rushed to his room and brought out two orange boxing gloves, before he started putting them on. "There's a certain technique that I'm having trouble mastering."

Sasuke ignored the stray black strand of hair that foolishly floated near his eye and blocked a fragment of his eyesight, and curiously asked. "What technique?"

"Well, it's a mixture of dodging and applying an uppercut with a jab." When the blond sensed the other evident cluelessness on what he was going on about, he simplified his explanation. "See… what I want you to do is really quite simple. Remember the first time we fought and how you used those strange golden particles to slash at me?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, I want you to do something akin to that. This time, though, I want it to be less aiming for my life and more punch-y like!"

"Punch-y like?"

"Yeah, like resembling a punch." Naruto offered. "You don't know what that means?"

"Of course I know what that means; I'm not an idiot like you. I was just checking that you really said something like 'punch-y'. You must be a kid to make up silly words like that…"

Naruto stuck his tongue out and retorted. "So, what's wrong with silly words? They're adorable. You're just jealous you didn't think of it yourself and besides, I don't mind being called a kid anyway."

"I believe you're the only adult out there who'd actually say something like that."

"Well thank you very much, my lovely Sasuke. Now, let's get to it already and punch me!"

Smirking deviously to cover up the tiny bit of happiness threatening to appear on his features, Sasuke gathered his power and, with no effort whatsoever, a small golden hand of glowing particles materialized and aimed straight for Naruto's stomach. The blond grinned as the hand nearly connected with his intestine, but since he was swifter he dodged it keenly and used a defending maneuver to punch through the hand with ease, causing the particles to crumple and disappear into thin air. He frowned and returned his gloved hands to either side of his hips before he whined at the ethereal figure.

"Sasuke, put some muscles into it! That wasn't even a real challenge!"

The raven snorted from where he was floating and calmly refuted. "If it turned into a real challenge, your insides would be painted as an attractive picture on that wall over there."

"Aww, you think my insides are lovely! You're sooo cute~" The blond cooed, but quickly added when Sasuke's eyes were on the verge of turning into its ballistic shade of red. "Still, you need to get serious, or I won't be able to get anything out of this training."

"I don't want to hear any complaints later."

A grin told him everything that he needed to know, and for the following hour all Naruto did was try to avoid getting killed and to control Sasuke's punching path as best as he could because, according to Kakashi , that was what he needed to master right now. The ability to switch the path of a punch from himself to his opponent lay in the coordination of his muscles, eye contact with the enemy and the ability to divert the other's attention. So far, he knew he'd mastered about twenty percent of the technique, forty was currently being memorized… and the other forty was a total mystery to him. With a groan, Naruto pushed his technical thoughts out of his mind and slid under his kitchen table in an attempt to secure a good spot to trick Sasuke and use his punch against him, but in a second that proved to be the wrong choice, because a golden fist collided with his jaw the minute his leg slithered underneath the piece of furniture.

Naruto promptly raised a white flag, announcing his surrender to the ethereal being, and gushed.

"That was awesome, Sasuke!"

"Are you sure you should be saying that? I practically handed your ass over to you." The raven quirked a brow and contemplated whether he'd injured Naruto's brain in the process.

Naruto laughed, making his way to the sink to wash the war trophies that Sasuke's unkind punches had inflicted upon his flesh. "It certainly was handed to me, but I picked up on the areas where my focus slips and on the ones where I'd need to strengthen my punches, so it was a win-win situation for me."

"Hn. As long as you're happy."

"Yeah, you helped a lot! Now, if you could just help in heal–"

"No. I told you before that, at this stage, I can never use my powers to cure you."

"Hmm… I remember you did, but you never revealed the reason."

"That's because you don't need to know the reason; you just need to know that it's not something you'd want to happen to you… so please, trust me on this."

Sighing, Naruto turned on the faucet and started nursing his scratches. "I'd love it more if you spilled the reason for me, but if it's something you can't tell me about then I won't ask again. Rest assured, I trust you plenty enough not to pry further."

The nod he got in return conveyed all the thanks the other wished to convey, yet before he could open his mouth and tease Sasuke about his inability to clearly establish his emotions, the deep, calm voice casually asked.

"By the way, who took over your team?"

"Huh? I never told you?"

Sasuke floated behind Naruto and rested on the washing machine, before he crossed his translucent hands in a comfortable position across his chest. "No, you never did."

"That's weird; it's not like I meant to hide it or anything, it probably never came in any of our conversations. Why do you want to know anyway, since you don't give a shit about stuff like this?"

"I don't, but when you come home asking to be trained to death and each and every day you arrive with new bruises and open wounds, I want to see the motherfucker who is making you go through hell. He's got a pathetic reason about making you get stronger, and when I find out who he is I'm going to go there, jinx his sorry ass and teach him what becoming stronger really means!"

Naruto internally quailed at the obvious killing intent, and smiled sheepishly at the ghost in an attempt to appease and reason with him. "Sasuke… no… that's just wrong. Even if I had no qualms about telling you his name, right now I do –and besides, it's not even his fault I'm having these wounds. If anything, it's my coach's fault."

"Oh yeah, I need the name of that bitch too!"

"So you can curse him as well?"

"Hmph, just who do you think I am?! Something as pathetic as a curse isn't worthy of me; heck, I even resent the fact that you'd think I'd use such a lowly and underhand method!"

Naruto breathed a sigh of relief. "Good, you had me th–"

"I'd face them head -on, ignite one of their desks into a bonfire, rip their internal organs out and then allow them to die wallowing in their own filthy blood."

Immediately, the relieved look vanished and was replaced by pure fright. "Now I'd never tell you their names."

"Why? They're torturing you, aren't they?"

"We've had this discussion before; they're not torturing me," The blond clarified as he scrubbed some disinfectant on his hands, "They're helping me get stronger, and I know the methods might be a little harsh, but come on Sasuke! I do boxing for a living, so I'm bound to attract injuries sooner or later, and I'd rather suffer a concussion in training than embarrass myself, my fellow teammates and my benefactor up in the ring."

"…Hmph. You're just a soft-hearted idiot, and you'll die from it someday."

"I don't mind that, because I know you'll be there for me if I did."

Naruto had no time to avoid the water as it deviated from its customary path and, accompanied by a foreign golden light, soared to his face, before it splashed him right in the eyes. He allowed the small attack to pass and when he felt the ghost was satisfied, he pulled the tap closed.

"Don't ever say such silly things like that again."

Naruto was left dumbfounded at the unexpectedly sad tone of voice, and Sasuke used the opportunity to slide out of the bathroom elegantly. In the ethereal being's absence the blond sighed, cracked his back and decided that a shower was the best choice to get the stench of blood off right now so, locking the door behind him, he spent the next half an hour scouring himself clean. When he was finished with a new change of clothes, he dragged his feet across the room Sasuke had secured as his –and refused Naruto an entry to – before he knocked gently.

"What do you want?"

"…I'm sorry for before."

"…"

He knocked again and this time, when Sasuke's face emerged from the door, he tumbled backwards in a tiny state of bewilderment.

"You said nothing that was worthy of an apology."

"But I did, and I hurt a part of your feelings, so I'm s –"

"Despite the fact you think I've highly fragile feelings that can get hurt by a pathetically fleeting comment, I don't, Uzumaki. Stop apologizing already, because you just look like a retard when you're doing so."

"You know, every time you call me idiotic, stupid or retarded nowadays, it feels more like a love confession." The blond countered with a grin on his face, and prepared his legs to run the moment the invisible vein inside Sasuke's forehead started popping.

"…That's it. You're a dead man now!"

Running like a madman and laughing his ass off the whole time, Naruto did the best he could not to get caught, but with the way he was stumbling over furniture, his ending –which was a straight-laced fall on the sofa– wasn't that much of a surprise. A giggle left the blond's mouth as golden air twirled around his left foot, and he was lifted off the ground until he was practically hanging to the ceiling with that foot. While the other continued laughing, Sasuke frowned and brought his face close to the laughing mess's, before he curiously mumbled.

"Why do you appear so amused?"

Naruto took a rest from his chuckling and grinned at the ghost, who had to reverse his position so he was able to look Naruto straight in the eyes, thanks to the upside down position the boxer was caught in. "That's because, Sasuke… now I can do this!"

Straight after that comment, tan hands circled around his transparent neck, but the contact only lasted for a fraction of a second before the power holding Naruto disappeared and he fell hard on the ground –luckily for him, though, he landed on his gluteus maximus, causing his muscles to act as cushions to soften the damage to his rear. For the second time that day, he heard the faintness of Sasuke's sigh graze over his shoulder blades as the ghost ran a hand through his messy, dark hair in dismay, though he was already getting used to Naruto's attempts at contact.

Sure, he'd yelled and threw a tantrum during the first week, and attempted to explain that the electric charges running through him were nothing but static electricity trapped in the air, and he'd been able to hold them using the forces of friction that generated them, but all that fell on deaf ears. He even tried reasoning that in no logical world were those charges attached to his being – and feeling them would mean feeling him – because that was just absurd, since he simply wasn't electric charges smashed together! He was a being and a creature, and even if he didn't know of the nature of the material he was made of right now, he knew he wasn't just a scientific prototype. He was firm in his belief, and he was sure that hell would break loose before he allowed a stupid human like Naruto to get off of him for whatever stupid thrill or other human emotion he was experiencing.

However, with the passing of days, he learned that changing Naruto and persuading him to give up his silly idea was close to impossible. Silently, he tried to ignore the pathetic attempts and occasionally attempted to smack some sense into the blond… just in case it helped somehow.

"I seriously don't know why you're so bent on touching me."

"Well, in the beginning, I just wanted to apply what I read off the internet and to see if a human could be able to physically touch a ghost… it was something close to an experiment, but after I did it and felt that awesome rush, I just wanted to feel it again and again…"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and watched as Naruto lifted his recently-washed body off the dirty ground and flopped lazily onto the sofa. "Well, you should know it's highly uncomfortable when you touch me; it feels like I'm being struck by lightning every time you make contact with me."

For a minute afterwards, Naruto's eyes remained comically wide-open as he stared at the ghost in shock, and when Sasuke threw a cushion to his face to signify that he was sick of the blind staring contest, the blond's mouth slowly began functioning.

"I… I… Sasuke, why didn't you tell me earlier?!"

"There was nothing to tell."

"But this is something to tell me! How could you just let me touch you so randomly when you felt the horrible feeling you described to me?!" However, before the ghost could respond, Naruto raised his hands and silently asked him to wait, before he added. "No, it wasn't your fault… I should have known better. I should've noticed it the minute you became objected to the whole thing… Sasu–"

"If you dare apologize again, then I swear I won't talk to you for a whole week –and Uzumaki, you know I will do it."

That seemed to shut the blond up, especially when he clamped both his hands over his mouth to shut it and managed a head shake to show that he wouldn't apologize, and that Sasuke didn't need to go through with the threat that would most definitely become truth if he continued on apologizing.

"Anyway, you should probably head to bed now, since you have training tomorrow."

"Hmm… yeah, I need to wake up at five in the morning tomorrow." Naruto stifled the whine that was threatening to break from his throat, and clarified. "We're going jogging around the block, and maybe we're climbing a mountain too."

"That's probably when I'd get the news that you fell to your death."

"Hush, don't jinx me now. These things tend to happen when you speak about them, so don't mention me falling, because it could really happen."

"Pfft, you and your superstitions…"

"Well, I need to believe in something, you know I can't just wander through life without and beliefs to ground me. And yeah, his name is Kakashi."

Sasuke's brows furrowed as he tilted his head in confusion. "Pardon me?"

"You remember earlier, when you were spouting the death threats at me? Well, my coach's name is Hatake Kakashi, and even though he's very hard to get along with, he's not out for my life just yet. He's a good coach and really has my back –I remember there was this time when I had to go and get my–"

"Naruto… what did you say his name was?"

At the baffled look and the stern tone, the blond scowled but answered the question regardless, despite his attempts to quieten the sudden alarm that went off inside his head. "Hatake Kakashi."

"A-And… your new boss' name is?"

All of Naruto's senses told him that he should not utter his boss' name before Sasuke, especially when his tone switched to a stuttering and uneven one and, as a boxer who relied on his instincts during confusing times, he refused the other an answer based on the unease inside of him.

"Hey… what's wrong?"

"H-His name… what was his name?"

Golden eyebrows wrinkled at the question as Naruto shook his head. "No… I won't tell you, because there's something wrong with you… if I told you… something bad would happen…"

"Naruto, what was his name?"

"…You do–"

"WHAT WAS HIS FUCKING NAME?!"

Blue eyes widened at the sudden outburst and, without meaning to, his lips released in a horrified tone. "…Uchiha Itachi."

Immediately, the ghost before him simply disappeared into thin air, just like an old photo album closing. Dumbfounded and rattled by the sudden disappearance, the blond continued gazing at the place Sasuke was just a mere second ago, and as he did an insistent question spun around inside his head.

What the hell had just happened?

* * *

"Having him around is amusing, Sakura; I've never seen Gaara so mad before … well, except for the last time he hit that trashy excuse of a boyfriend you had at the time. Anyhow, he's gotten Gaara running him errands right and left and there's nothing he can do about it." The blond released fits of laughter on the living room of Sakura's apartment, and breathlessly added. "He's been had."

The pink haired girl tucked a stray lock back into place as she placed the appetizers, along with the alcohol, on the table. "I certainly wish to meet him in the near future. It's a first to find a person who can rattle you this much, Gaara."

"He didn't rattle anything in me; I'm simply following instructions made by the new boss. And you," the redhead shot a warning glare to his snickering blond friend. "Stop spurting nonsense."

"See?! His nerves are already fraying, and I didn't even say his name!"

"Naruto!"

"To be honest, Gaara, I think he's a good influence on you. This quietness you're always harboring isn't good; in fact, it's rather irritating at times. To see him messing you up a bit is a good breather from your everyday indifference."

The redhead hmphed and settled into a comfortable spot on the cushion Sakura had arranged for them in the middle of her comfortable living room. He eyed his two best friends and acidly explained his opinion of his new –and supposed– coach. "He's nothing but a pain in the ass; he does whatever he wants regardless of where or when it is, and he breaks all the rules I've known… I've no idea how to handle a retard like him."

"Wow, Gaara, I'd never thought I'd hear you say that about a living person. Now I'm more intrigued than ever to know about him! Tell me more!" She exclaimed excitedly as she poured them both alcoholic shots into their mugs.

When Gaara refused to elaborate further upon her request, Sakura shifted her attention to Naruto, and the blond snickered a reply to satisfy her curiosity. "I don't really know much about him, but if there's one thing I was to mention then I'd say he's head over heels for Gaara."

Sakura blinked for a few moments, before her eyes went wide and she squealed in thrilled delight. "You're kidding! Seriously?! Head over heels in love?!"

Naruto nodded enthusiastically at her squeal, and expanded on his comment. "Apparently, he's trying with all his might to get a hold on Gaara's heart, but 'The Ice Queen' over here simply refuses to make it an easy task for him. Still, he's following some unorthodox means if you ask me, but…" He shrugged slightly, before finishing off his evaluation. "He thinks that that's how he'll be able to get Gaara's love, so who am I to question his thoughts?"

"This is getting more and more interesting; I really, really want to meet him now!"

"Actually, Sakura, I think he's more close to your type than anything. He's cool, attractive and polite, and you two would definitely look good together."

She smiled eagerly and zealously responded. "Yeah, though it's too bad that he roots for the other team. And you," Sakura turned to the silent addition to their get-together and began a little teasing game. "When did you turn your attention to the other sex? And why haven't I heard anything?"

"Now that you mention it, Sakura, I wasn't told about his coming out phase either. Shame on you, Gaara!" Naruto added with a fake stern tone that send Sakura into a small fit of giggling.

Gaara forced himself not to smash his two friends to a pulp as they continued to mock him behind his back, and tried his best to remain passive. Acting as if they were speaking about another person and detaching himself from the conversation, he drained the entire whiskey bottle and mentally cursed the sourness as it met the acidity of his stomach's gastric juices. Naruto whistled as Sakura pried her precious wine from his grasp and angrily scolded the redhead.

"Hey! Do you know how much that cost?!"

"Nah, Sakura, let him drink his homosexuality away. Besides, it's not like you paid for it yourself –the rich ass of your former boyfriend did– so let's enjoy ourselves~" Naruto chirped, snatching the bottle from her hands and placing it back to Gaara's. "Drink as much as you want, buddy. Today we celebrate!"

"I get why he would want to celebrate and forget that his ass is in danger of being raped, but why are you joining in? Your match is tomorrow, right? Shouldn't you be on your way home to try and catch a good night's sleep?"

"Come on, Sakura, it's been a while since all three of us have gotten together for a good drink, so don't mind the little details. Tonight we'll drink, party, and have fun!"

Before Sakura could ask any further questions about Naruto's sudden descent into insanity and his disregard for all common sense, the blond gulped down half of the toxic liquor into his stomach and grinned luxuriously at her. With a great deal of force, she detached his hands from the expensive bottle and was successful in achieving her endeavor without hurting either of them. However, when she looked at her two friends giggling and laughing at absurdly humorless things, her old competitive spirit kicked in and she poured the liquid down her own throat in a defiantly duplicative act. Who said that they were the only ones allowed to get wasted and lose their minds? She was entitled to have fun, too!

After two hours of worthless conversations, smashed glassware and discarded clothes, Sakura opened her eyes to the mess that had previously been her living room. She groaned her intoxicated self to a degree of sobriety and attempted to wake the two sleeping males from the floor, trying to at least have them sleep on the beds if they were planning on spending the night, but it was to no avail.

She giggled to herself at the futility of the situation; with the condition her two friends were in, there was no way either of them were going to drive themselves home, so they were definitely planning on staying the night. It wasn't like any of them had a girlfriend –or a boyfriend, in Gaara's case– at home waiting for them, because they were single, just like herself. So, in a failed attempt to sober up by drinking some water, Sakura went over to the bathroom and splashed water on her face, thus proving that this was the best means available for dispelling her hangover.

Feeling slightly lightheaded but marginally better, she made her way to the living room and nudged Gaara awake, who proved to be no trouble at all when he suddenly shot up and waltzed over to her guest room, but her luck ended when she came to Naruto, the sleeping ape. She nudged, poked, smacked, hit and even shouted at him, yet the male refused to acknowledge her at all so, as a last resort, she brought a pocket of water and splashed it on his passed-out form. Even then, it took five minute until Naruto's brain processed the fact that he needed to get up, and when that happened, only one lazy eye was opened to her. Sighing tiredly, Sakura quietly murmured.

"Naru, you need to go sleep on the bed… if you sleep here, my floor is going to stink of booze, and I want to avoid that, if at all possible."

Her words clearly fell on deaf ears, because Naruto merely grinned goofily at her and mumbled in a tired tone. "Sasuke… I knew you cared about the floor, man."

She knotted her brows at the foreign name, but ignored it as one of her blond friend's hallucinations and continued trying to get him off her floor. "I really would appreciate some help in lifting you up… you're heavy, you know!"

By this time, Sakura found out that she really hated Naruto when he giggled. For one, it was irritating as hell; for another, it wasn't manly; and worst of all, it made her wish to smash his head into the ugly vase she got as a birthday present from Ino, her best female friend and coworker. However, she didn't do it; instead, she put up with it until the giggles died down and listened to the sad tone that accompanied the words that seeped absentmindedly through Naruto's mouth.

"Why have you been disappearing on me lately…? Why don't you come when I call you anymore? I'm sorry if you're… if you're mad at me… I'm so sorry."

Sakura groaned as she eventually managed to put the blond in bed and pulled the cover over him and the half-naked Gaara –who, for some reason, had believed that his clothes were on fire some time during their tenth drinking session and removed everything, except his boxers– and averted her eyes from the flimsy curtain shadowing his privates. Sakura sighed at her aching muscles and, before she shut both the light and door to her guest room, she heard Naruto's final whisper.

"Sasuke… I miss you."

The question that pounced on her drunken head and tortured her with its annoying ring was: who the heck was this Sasuke?!

* * *

Flipping the hoodie over his head, Naruto rushed quickly to the inside of his apartment building before he was drenched to the bone by the falling raindrops. Without him knowing it, the rainy season had kicked in, and glassy reflections of water were everywhere. Shaking his head to rid himself of lingering raindrops, he used the stairs to get to his fifth-floor apartment, spending every minute available to strengthen his muscles for the upcoming matches that he would surely be pushed into without prior warning… just like his previous ones.

His day of judgment had come when he made the mistake of getting hammered at Sakura's and woke up with an ungodly headache that even four pills of aspirin couldn't flush out of his system. Naruto had thanked God for putting his loyal friend Gaara there with him as the redhead relentlessly agreed to drive his tired muscles to the site of his defining match. Needless to say, it took him longer than anticipated to be able to stumble across a win in his first match, and as expected, he got himself an epically long lecture from his trainer, teammates and, most importantly of all, his owner. Naruto had made a vow to all of them that day that he'll never get drunk before a match and he'd never allow them to see such an embarrassing performance ever again, and he planned to uphold that agreement.

When he finally reached his apartment, Naruto walked inside and immediately discarded the wet clothes clinging to his skin. Instead of cheerily announcing that he was back, he went straight to his room to fetch a change of clothing and hit the shower afterwards. The reason he stopped himself from announcing his presence was because, recently, the faint whisper that would acknowledge his greeting had ceased and, as much as he hated to admit it, it was debilitating for him to continue, so he'd simply stopped.

He ruffled his head, trying to abstain from his despairing thoughts, and slid the bathroom door aside with the intention of taking a ten-minute bath. Quickly, he scrubbed at his tired muscles and within the set time, he was out with a wet towel cradling his midsection and damp locks dripping lazily over his broad shoulders. With steps filled with nothing but pure exhaustion, Naruto dragged his tired body to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of unalloyed mineral water.

At that exact moment, he was jolted out of his apathetic state by the sudden storm outside as thunder rumbled across the heavens, and his teeth began to shudder unconsciously.

Naruto wasn't a scaredy-cat and normally he didn't have any problem with Mother Nature or her annoyingly thunderous cries for help, but due to his frayed mental state and his fatigued physical one, the last thing he needed to deal with was a sudden and heavy downpour that would assure him of zero chance at a fulfilling night of sleep. Calmly sighing, Naruto walked towards the windows and pulled the drapes down to cover the hell outside… which resulted in his apartment being plunged into shadowy darkness. To remedy the situation, he walked towards the light switches and turned all of them on, causing a dim honey-coloured light to replace the initial blackness in his property.

Blinking at the light bulbs that were supposed to be white, Naruto questioned aloud. "…Huh? What's going on here?"

He blinked again when one bulb turned white, and mutely watched as another stopped working and dimmed the eerily-dark apartment. His brows furrowed together in a state of amazement, but before he could pick up his phone to call an electrician over, the light bulbs began to flash on and off in a strangely rhythmic fashion of white and cream-colored light, and the blond forgot his fatigue while looking at the lovely combination. He smiled, as he knew of only one creature in the universe that was able to pull off some fancy trick like this and, as if lost in a drunken trance, the elegant name of the ethereal creature rolled off his lips.

"…Sasuke."

Abruptly, the whole of the apartment turned dark as the light bulbs switched off all at once. Naruto blinked the sudden darkness away and, in a confused tone, he inquired for clarification.

"Sasuke? You're Sasuke… right? Hey, where have you been? It's been close to three weeks now and I've no idea what happened to you since that night…" he winced when he remembered the way Sasuke had suddenly disappeared from his sight, and forced himself to continue past the memories. "I've been worried sick about you. What happened? Why were you so pent up on their names? Do they mean anything to you?! Sasuke… please answer me!"

However, when no light flickered on to answer his flood of questions, the blond sighed and started to calm his throbbing heart. It seemed he wasn't crazy and Sasuke wasn't just a fragment of his imagination, so that was a very good starting point. Before jumping to any conclusions, though, he'd have to clarify some basic –and the most important– information right now. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Naruto detachedly started talking.

"Okay, look, if you are really Sasuke, then I want to ask you some questions, and please try to answer me." One of the lights on his right flickered a shiny orange, and Naruto frowned confusedly. "Wait… I won't understand anything like this, so how about we use a system for communication? I'll try to ask polar questions, and if the answer is 'no' then use this light –" He pointed to the light bulb to his right, near the living room entrance. "– and turn it orange. However, if the answer is 'yes' then turn it white. Do you understand?"

His eyes visibly relaxed when the designated light turned white and, dragging a chair close to the light bulb, Naruto sat down and began his series of interrogative questioning.

"Are you Sasuke?"

The light turned white.

"Can you talk?"

The bulb switched to an orangish hue.

"Are you mad at me?"

The light stayed dark for a while but finally flickered orange, which caused a calming sigh to befall Naruto's lips.

"Phew… I thought you'd disappeared because I did something to you –wait, so if I wasn't the reason, then why did you disappear?"

There was no answer or change in colors, and the blond nearly hit himself hard when he realized that the raven couldn't possibly answer with words. To circumvent this problem, he changed it to a question that could be answered.

"Sorry, I forgot… hmm… then, before I could dive into deeper stuff, tell me… are you alright?"

His eyes widened when the light turned orange, and Naruto had to take a few minutes to calm his heart down and clear his mind so he could identify the precise reason for Sasuke's lack of wellbeing. With a deep breath to rid himself of the violent trembling in his system, he asked in a querulous tone that failed his determination and wavered at the ending.

"…Does it have something to do with your powers?"

The light flickered white.

"C-Can I do something to help?"

Naruto was lost as the light turned white and orange, and questioned again in an attempt to clarify.

"Does that mean I can and can't?"

He sighed as his eyes looked at a white bulb.

"You can't talk though, so you can't tell me what I can do to help you… wait, do you know the reason for it?"

The light turned a faint white –unlike the bright one Sasuke used earlier to demonstrate with– and at that, Naruto's mind registered two reasons; either Sasuke was steadily losing his powers, or he wasn't totally sure of the reason for their sudden decline.

"You haven't shown yourself to me since that night… so did you also lose the power that enabled you to show yourself?"

The light shone strongly with a vibrant white, which told Naruto that the former answer was his uncertainty of the reason his powers were failing, and not that they were declining even further. Relieved at this knowledge, the blond crossed his legs as he tried to rearrange the jumble of questions inside his brain and extract the ones that were really bugging him.

"Does… does it have anything to do with Hatake Kakashi and Uchiha Itachi?"

Naruto had to brace himself when the light bulb in the kitchen abruptly shattered simultaneously with the sudden thunder that roared across the sky as the answer shone in a bright white for his eyes to see. Shaking his perplexity aside, he continued with his interrogation.

"…Do you think your powers will continue to decline from now on?"

The light bulb turned white.

"Will you pass on to heaven if that happened?" He asked as his right hand grabbed at the towel covering his thighs; in the midst of all the confusion, he'd forgotten to change into proper wear.

The previous move, where the light switched from white to orange, had been repeated for his azure orbs to behold.

"…W-Will you be gone if they didn't return?"

It took a while –and Naruto's emotions were strained to the max due to the suspenseful wait– when the light bulb finally switched white.

"Then tell me! What do you need me to do to get your powers back, or get at least a fraction of your power back?! You can't just disappear, not after all that we've gone through together and not after we've finally started connecting! You can't just… disappear."

Naruto had to fight against his own emotions and his own turmoil; he wasn't a person who could part well with people, and always needed a heads-up if a person he cared about was set on leaving for a very long period of time. Sakura has always said that it was due to the fact that he'd lost both his parents at a tender young age and the suddenness of their accidents with no mental preparation whatsoever, so he'd become extra sensitive to having people vanish from his sight and, according to her, he'd need the aid of a specialist to deal with that problem.

The blond shook his head to get the old memories out, because this wasn't the time for memories –it was the time to focus on Sasuke's problem. He knew that what he was experiencing probably didn't even come close to what the unseen ghost was going through, and without meaning to, he found himself pouring out his thoughts to the other.

"You've always been here… unable to communicate with me, but here nonetheless. I thought I'd gone crazy, that you were never there and that I'd made you up to cover a hole inside my heart and to cure my own fear of loneliness, but that wasn't the case… you were here, watching powerlessly without being able to express yourself at all… no, I bet you did. You probably tried to let me know that you were here, but… I… I couldn't listen because you didn't have the power in you to make me listen. I can only imagine how all that must've felt; the torture of being there but being unseen or unheard… the terror of invisibility must've struck you hard. I'm so sorry, Sasuke, for being unable to help you, for thinking that you've left me and for doubting my mental health alongside your existence…I'm so very sorry for what I've done."

His eyes lifted up from the floor they'd resided on, and floated to the lights lining his apartment. He watched in reverence as their colors began cycling entrancingly from gold to blue and then to dark red, matching the colors that had always been circulating around Sasuke, and the blond felt his heart flutter from the familiar sight. This was Sasuke's way of telling him that he was alright, and that there was no need for the blond to feel any regret or self-loathing. The ethereal being didn't blame him for being unable to hear or see him… and he affirmed that it wasn't his fault.

Naruto took comfort in the lovely demonstration that was his and his alone, and gave Sasuke a cheerful laugh to show him that.

"Thanks, Sasuke; I really appreciate it," However, before the hidden ghost could spring any more surprises, Naruto hurriedly continued on. "And I just have an idea on how you can tell me what you need! Sadly, I don't have an Ouija board, and getting one online would talk a while –plus we have no idea when your powers would stop altogether– so for now, how about we do this? I'll say a letter, and you agree if it's from the word that forms the sentence you want me to know or not, and for that we'll go with the same system we've been using. Okay, when you're ready to tell me what I can do to help, just flick the bulb blue," Naruto grinned at this and reminisced aloud, "I just love the blue you always dragged behind you, and I miss seeing it."

With hesitance, the light turned a vibrant shade of blue that had Naruto's whole face glow with happiness, and grabbing a pencil in his hand to scribble down the things Sasuke needed for strengthening his lost powers, Naruto opened his mouth and began the experiment.

"A?"

And the light turned white.

* * *

**Thanks for reading~ I hope you enjoyed yourselves! This was a very fluffy chapter for me to write, lol no drama~ so review on your way out and make me happy~ :3 **


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